


A True Gentleman

by SuedeScripture



Category: Actor RPF, Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-15
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:27:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 72,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuedeScripture/pseuds/SuedeScripture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dom is a slacking Harvard Art/Architecture undergrad who constantly dogs and teases Billy, a pre-doctorial Art History nerd. When forced to spend time together, can they learn to accept each other's differences?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Despite having Art History, Architecture and various other obviously related programs, Harvard University does not actually have a Fine Arts program. Let's pretend, shall we?

_Cambridge, Massachusetts  
Harvard University  
Spring Semester_

Dom strode across the frosty lawn, breathing on his fingertips in his cut-off gloves, still cold from washing off the charcoal of his morning drawing class. On the steps of the building stood Elijah, who was sucking on a Parliament, and Orlando, who wasn’t, though the air was cold and moist enough even in the morning sun to make his breath look like smoke as they waited to meet Dom before HAA 129.

“Boys,” Dom grinned as he strode up, meeting Orli’s half high five, half handshake. “Lij, good to see you’ve rejoined the land of the living. I even got up early and made pancakes and you couldn’t be bothered.”

“Sorry, Dom, your pancakes are great, but you know my heart and soul belongs to Starbucks,” Lij held up a steaming cup in his hand.

“Oh man, look, here he comes,” said Orlando, poking Dom eagerly. He followed Orlando’s gaze and easily found the subject of much amusement throughout this last year shuffling up the frozen sidewalk.

Billy Boyd was Prof Mort’s TA and one of the biggest geeks around, which was saying a lot. Today it was the usual khakis with a button down shirt and an Argyll sweater vest over top, though this one was a new and particularly ugly color combination. He also wore a tattered, tweedy sort of blazer, which went everywhere with him, apparently the only jacket he had. He squinted in the morning light behind wire-framed glasses that perpetually slid down his nose, and he carried a briefcase and a rucksack that was strapped to both shoulders. If he slipped it would have flipped his little frame like a beetle, so full of books as it looked to be. He hunched forward to accommodate its weight, and minced his steps on the slippery concrete in his hush puppies, looking a bit like a turtle in an ice rink.

“Hey Boyd, alright?” Orlando called out, grinning like a maniac. Billy steadfastly ignored the greeting. He’d learned by now that Orlando never really meant well. “I can’t wait to get into it again, mate! Sometimes a dead guy in the bath is just a dead guy in the bath!”

Elijah hitched his jeans up high, sucked his lower lip in, hunched under his own backpack and teetered along the sidewalk in imitation, making a group of girls nearby splutter into giggles.

“Loving the vest, Bills, so classy,” Dom called.

Billy took a half-step toward them as if he meant to shut them up, but his foot landed on a patch of ice and he went down with a crash and a clatter.

“Oh!” Elijah hooted, both fists thrust up in the air, “He shoots he scores!”

“Nine point five, man,” Orlando laughed, “That was classic.”

If the undergrads milling about in front of the building weren’t already giggling, they were all laughing now. Billy rose to his knees, looking at the skinned heel of his left hand, cheeks flushed with more than cold and glaring daggers at the three of them. His briefcase had skidded along the icy ground, and as he climbed awkwardly to his feet, Dom darted forward to pick it up.

“Sorry,” he grinned, handing it back.

“Yeah, sure you are,” Billy spat, snatching the case and starting slowly up the stairs without looking back.

“So polite, Dommie,” Elijah bowed genteelly with a flourish of his hand as Dom strode back to them.

“Hey, I live by the creed, don’t you know,” Dom preened, putting a hand on his heart, over the SAE frat emblem on his tee. “A true gentleman, that’s me.”

“Yeah, right,” Orlando said, still sniggering as he watched Billy disappear through the doors, “Jesus, he is such a wanker.”

Boyd was predictably absent when they entered the classroom, though his bag and briefcase were piled on the desk by the wall where he typically sat during the class. They found Professor Mortensen setting up the slide projector, eyeing them from beneath his brows and returning students’ greetings with his usual stoic nod as the class filed in.

“Hey, Mort,” Dom called, flopping into his usual desk a row behind Billy’s. “They say you’re doing poetry readings at the Lizard on Wednesday.”

Mortensen shifted the finicky old slide carousel back and forth. “That’s what they say.”

“Is it going to be all _Leaves of Grass_ , or will you go more for the Kerouac angle?”

“I am my own beast,” Mort answered, raising a brow.

“Maybe the boys and I ought to come and heckle,” Dom sprawled in his chair lazily. “It wouldn’t be a soapbox without a dissenter or three.”

“Maybe you should try a little spoken word yourself, Dom. Although I don’t know that you’ll have the time,” Mort eyed him pointedly.

“As long as you’re not as bad as fucking Shatner,” Elijah muttered.

Dom liked to think he was on good terms with Professor Mortensen. He’d been his advisor for the past three and a half years, and they got along well. He loved to get the professor to laugh, his whole face changed shape with he did, but today Mort was not taking the bait. In fact, the look Dom was getting from him suggested he was toeing some sort of line, so he let it go with a smirk and a shrug.

It was a good five minutes into the period when Billy finally emerged, his khakis still blotchily sodden and dabbing his hand with a slightly bloody wad of paper towels as he crossed to the podium. Half the class openly sniggered along with Orlando and Elijah, while the other half had the grace to look at least a little sorry for him.

“Right,” Billy said, tugging a tail of his shirt out of his trousers to clean his glasses before tucking it back in. “If someone could hit the lights, we’ll get this over with.”

No one moved for a moment, until Dom got up to numerous titters of laughter and did as Billy asked.

“Such a gent, Dom,” Orlando stage-whispered.

Billy was not a particularly good lecturer. He knew the material as well as any professor, though he’d been around it long enough to have his own opinions and didn’t readily enjoy debate or disagreement the way Mortensen did, hence the standing argument with Orlando on _The Death of Marat_ from last semester. Dom had silently sided with Billy on that one, given the known history of the subject, and he suspected Orlando knew better as well, but that particular lecture they’d had so much fun twisting Billy in knots that neither wanted to concede the point.

Still, it could not be clearer that Billy did not enjoy leading the class. He was uncomfortable in front of people and hid behind the podium, in the dark with the slides turning as often as possible. He kept his eyes on the art and didn’t engage the students, and on occasions when debate was struck up during his hour he became even more flustered than usual. Dom often wondered why Mort made him do it at least every other week since it seemed so unlikely that Boyd wanted to teach as a career. It was fairly well known among the Arts program that Billy was a PhD candidate and on the verge of starting his dissertation, but just a few months ago, he’d disappeared from campus entirely with six weeks left in the fall semester, even though he’d been that close to finishing his coursework. Now he was back and apparently still taking classes, looking as frazzled and overwhelmed and annoyed to be here as he ever did.

Today was no different from Boyd’s typical lectures. Elijah took center stage this time, complaining that only someone completely anal retentive would take pointillism to the level Seurat did, while Billy maintained that anyone who could see the world like a dot matrix print in the nineteenth century was light years beyond his era. Orlando was more than happy to run with Elijah and point out that a couple of centuries didn’t quite add up to a light year, just to get Billy more and more irate by the minute.

Dom sat this one out, doodling on his notebook, figuring Billy didn’t really need the triple assault after this morning. He was subtly favoring his left ankle, the one that had twisted out from under him when Dom had mocked his vest, and he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for it. Toward the end of the slide reel, he got bored and made a beeline for the toilet, spending several minutes faffing about until close to the end of the period. When he returned, the lights were up and Billy was back at his desk, rummaging through his enormous rucksack and doing his damnedest to ignore everyone else in the room.

He inadvertently bumped Billy’s briefcase as he passed, which fell to the floor and sprung open, scattering papers everywhere. He really hadn’t meant to, but he could barely contain his glee at the outrage on Boyd’s face. “Ah shite, mate, wouldn’t have figured you for a clumsy git. Let me help you with that.”

Orlando snorted trying to hold in his laughter, while Elijah just guffawed loudly. The bell rang and the rest of the room rose into movement.

“Wait!” Mortensen held up a commanding hand to stop them, “Remember to read chapters eleven through fourteen on Fauvism, Orphism, and Surrealism and their respective influence on the Modern Movement. I want five hundred words on the discussion questions at end of each chapter in my box by Thursday.” The room collectively groaned as he continued, “If you have any questions on whether or not this is really necessary, consult your syllabus or ask Mr. Boyd before you waste my office hours trying to repair your grade after the fact. Mr. Monaghan! If I could have moment of your undoubtedly valuable time.”

“Aw, you know I’d give you more than a moment, Professor,” Dom announced to much laughter, pushing a crumpled pile of Billy’s papers back at him and swaggering to the front, wondering if he was going to get berated for blowing off the last bit of the lecture as he waved off Orlando and Elijah not to wait up.

The professor waited for the room to clear out, sitting on the edge of the desk and looking at Dom pointedly. “That would be surprising, considering you’ve managed to miss your last two advising appointments.”

“I know, but things just come up, and I’ve just–” Dom glanced away, at Billy, who was still trying to put his briefcase in order.

“Things?” Mortensen raised his brows.

“Well, the one right after Christmas, I was at the Winter Pride Rally with the GSA. And this last time I was on the crew doing the mural in the Lamont Library hall. We only just finished, have you seen it?”

Mortensen nodded, “Extracurricular work is fine, but you know your course work shouldn’t come second to more enjoyable activities.”

“Well, the GSA isn’t always fun, you know, it takes a lot of work to organize those rallies. Plus I’m treasurer even though I’m shite at Maths. Silly for an architecture student, eh? I’ve just had all kinds of things going on this last month.”

“Really,” Mort rubbed at his goatee, “From what I’ve heard, the Delta Gamma Winter Wet T-Shirt Contest was certainly important.”

“Now, I was only brought into that as an impartial judge,” Dom pointed out very seriously, “There was a tie.”

Mort raised his eyebrows, “And the mass birthday bar crawl for Mr. Wood and Mr. Bloom I’ve heard so much talk of in the halls? I hear the projectile vomiting was breathtaking.”

Dom’s mouth turned up and he tried to hide it by looking at the floor.

“You haven’t turned in any work for this class since the semester began. You haven’t turned in any writing assignments for Blanchett’s class. You asked for an extension on your paper for Noble, and that extension has since passed. And I’m told you didn’t turn up for a make-up test for McKellen, after missing the first because you were in… was it the Hamptons? The semester’s hardly begun and you needed a weekend away?”

“I…” Dom tried.

“I haven’t heard from Serkis or Otto, but I’m willing to bet you haven’t turned in work for them either. You’re dangerously close to taking zeros in more than half your courses for the semester already, in _both_ your concentrations. I don’t think I need to tell you what that will mean for graduation.”

Dom brought his eyes back to the professor’s, looking for empty threat, a joke, but finding none looking back in Mort’s piercing eyes. Billy finally got his briefcase snapped closed and turned to repacking his rucksack.

“You’re sharp, Dom. Your work is well above average when you do it,” Professor Mortensen told him. “I know it’s not lack of comprehension or even interest. You don’t come this close to graduating at an Ivy League school only to give up now. What is it, then?”

“I dunno, I’m just… distracted, I guess. Senioritis,” he tried a winning grin.

The professor studied him thoughtfully. “How about this. We’ll set you up with a study mate. Bill here’s got all my extra work on his plate, on top of finishing his courses.” Billy’s head shot up at this, while Mortensen continued, “How about the two of you meet up a few times a week and help each other out?”

Boyd piped up loud and fast, “Professor, all due respect, I really don’t think–”

“He hates me, sir,” Dom interrupted, smile fading. “I wouldn’t want to cause Mr. Boyd any more grief than I already do.”

Billy finally managed to pull his things together and heaved his heavy rucksack over one shoulder, clutching his bursting case to his chest with both hands. He’d carefully schooled his features to be impassive as he approached them, “I can manage, Professor. I really do better studying on my own.”

“You’re two weeks behind on grading and I still need those references copied out for tomorrow,” Mortensen said, his features softening when Billy’s jaw clenched, reminded of another thing on a long list. “Look, spend a few hours together crunching your assignments a couple times a week, and then the two of you can tackle my shit work. I’m sure Dom can run the copy machine. Keep each other on task. It might get Dom’s head glued back on straight to read some of his friends’ work anyway.”

“Nah, I’m afraid my head’s stuck on crooked for sure, Prof,” Dom grinned wryly.

Billy kept his gaze on the professor, some silent conversation playing out between them before he gave a relenting sigh, turning hard eyes on Dom, “I’m in Lamont from three to six, Mondays and Thursdays. Study Room Eight on the third floor,” He turned to leave, his briefcase knocking against his khakis.

“Be there or be square?” Dom fired off, and Billy hesitated a second, shaking his head as he left.

“Right,” Dom nodded after him, glancing back to Mort and shifting his feet, “I don’t suppose this is optional, eh?”

Mortensen shrugged. “That’s up to you, you know that. But you’re on thin ice with most of your professors, including me. You need to arrange with each of them a time frame of when they will accept your late work for a grade. Mine is a week, by the way.”

Dom’s smile dropped off entirely, “A week? But all the others probably will be, and that’s insane.”

“Then I suggest you make the most of your time with Billy. Put other activities on hold, if you have to. If you want to graduate from this university alongside your friends, this is the way it is. Now,” Mort’s voice was firm, “I want to see you during my office hours tomorrow afternoon. Make time. We’ll talk about how you’re going to catch up enough to salvage your GPA.”

Dom winced. His father wouldn’t be pleased about that. “I’ve got Photography at four tomorrow, but I might be able to come before then.”

Mort’s eyes penetrated until Dom tried again. “I’ll be there at three-thirty?”

The professor nodded and gestured to the door, and Dom shuffled off to shoulder his bag with a sigh.

“Dom,” Mort called as he went through the door, and Dom poked his head back in.

“I will hear if you don’t show at Lamont, I’m sure.”

“And I’m sure you’ll hear if I do,” Dom winked as he left the classroom.

 

When Dom stumbled into the flat that evening he was met by Elijah, sat at the table with his homework spread out across it, while Orlando and his girlfriend were flipping channels on one of the two large sofas set before their flat screen TV. He went straight to the kitchen to dig in the fridge for something to drink.

True to his word, he’d gone to the library and studied with Billy that afternoon. When he’d got down to it, pulled out the syllabi for all his courses and discovered just how much he had to make up for in the past month, as well as keeping up with the rest from now on, it sank in exactly how far he’d slacked off. He had two long papers and at least five shorter ones, hundreds of pages to read and discuss in writing, worksheets and take home tests, not to mention various visual assignments for figure drawing, photography, and design. And since Billy had barely even acknowledged his presence, he’d worked the full three hours in Study Room Eight until Billy had looked at his watch, packed up his things and left without so much as a goodbye.

Dom twisted off the top of his beer and took a gulp, going upstairs to dump his things in his room. He’d be probably studying with Boyd twice a week for the whole semester to catch back up. There were a dozen things he could easily set to work on in the quiet of his room, but after three hours of near silence, he needed something else. Grabbing his sketchpad, his pencil kit and the beer, he headed back down the stairs to the main room.

“You.” He pointed over the back of the sofa at Orlando. “What are you doing?”

Orlando sprawled, throwing an arm around Juliette, “At the moment? Not a thing, mate. Vegging.”

Dom nodded, “Right. Get your arse up then. Strip.”

“Aw, man, now? Jules is here.”

Dom shrugged, “She can watch, doesn’t bother me.” He hopped up onto the pool table and settled indian-style, unrolling his pencil kit and flipping to a clean page in his sketchpad. “Get naked and up against the window, man, assume the position before the sun goes down and the whole of Boston gets an eyeful. Besides, it’ll be like foreplay.”

Orlando looked to Juliette in a fervent plea to get him out of this, but she didn’t buy it. “Go on,” she urged. “I always thought you’d be good for a floor show.”

Dom winked at her and waited. “Orli, come on, man. Mort gave me a spanking about how much I’ve fucked off this last month, and I have, so be a mate and get naked. It’s for a grade if it makes you feel better.”

“Is that why he held you up this morning?”

“Yeah,” Dom answered, pulling a few charcoal sticks from their plastic wrap, “He’s making me study with Boyd to catch up.”

Orlando’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“I just spent three hours watching him flit back and forth like a mosquito between about sixty-five books and that ancient laptop of his. So come on, Orli, give me something more stimulating to look at.”

Orlando laughed widely, “Shit, stuck with that fucking twat for three hours, Mort must really have it in for you.”

“Aw, I don’t think Billy’s that bad,” Juliette cut in, “He’s just a little…”

“Just a little bit of a weed?” Orlando grumbled as he stood up and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. “Turn the bloody heat up, at least, or my balls will crawl up under the covers like last time.”

“I’m not drawing your nads, man, it’s your arse I’m interested in.” Dom threw a grin at Juliette, who had come around to watch as he took an exacto to the tip of his charcoal sticks.

“I want to know how many times we have to do this before you can recreate my arse from memory,” Orlando complained, dropping his jeans and scratching said arse before planting his hands on the big window pane overlooking the city from their loft. “Wasn’t last semester enough?”

“There is never enough arse, Orli,” Dom leered.

“I did _not_ need to hear any of that, you guys, fucking seriously,” Elijah said from the table, dropping his pen and gathering up his crap to take to the privacy of his room, his cheeks flaring up pink at the sight of Orlando in the buff.

Dom laughed, dragging his eyes over the figure in front of him, tossed his hair out of his eyes and started sketching.


	2. Chapter 2

“Now, of course, the idea that Jan van Eyck _invented_ oil painting is really just your text’s author spouting off at the mouth. But he was probably one of the pioneers of the Dutch method of working on oak paneling, and there it was the preparation of the surface that was revolutionary. They covered the panel in chalk powder and glue, and then polished it to a finish that was perfectly smooth. Combine that with the way they used dozens, even hundreds of layers of very thin pigments, and the result is this level of detail and depth that really was unparalleled. The detail in his most famous piece, _The Arnolfini Marriage_ is a bit astounding, really, if you take the time to look.”

Billy snuck a quick glance around in the dim classroom. The HAA 89 class was a godsend to lecture compared to the 129 course. Whether it was his personal preference for pre-modern art or the fact that the students in this particular class didn’t make it a point to harass him, he wasn’t sure, but it usually gave him a respite from the torment of yesterday. Half of this class looked bored, but it appeared that he actually had the other half’s attention. Or rather, van Eyck did, which was just as good.

“Now, keep in mind that this piece is not one of the massive pieces that the Italians or the French favored at the time. It’s about twenty-four by thirty-three inches, more or less the size of an unfolded newspaper. Which, when we zoom into the mirror you see in the background there…” he clicked the button to change the slide, “Well, I’ll let you look for yourselves.”

The next slide came into focus, and won him at least two or three gasps the detail within the painting. He turned back to the slide himself and grinned privately in the dark.

“There are various theories as to who the other people in the painting are, ranging from one being the reflection of the artist himself, or possibly witnesses to the consummation of the marriage, which would have been commonplace among the aristocracy of the time. You can also see around the frame of the mirror is a complete depiction of the Passion of Christ in each of the insets. Now, consider that the mirror itself is only about two inches in diameter on the actual piece, so the each of the insets couldn’t possibly be more than an quarter of an inch across at the most, yet—”

Abruptly the bell for the end of class interrupted his speech, and the class seemed as startled as he was that it was over, slowly gathering their things to leave while he stuttered out the appropriate homework assignment. The slide reel remained on, the detail image washed out as the lights went up.

“That is so cool,” said one young woman coming forward with her book bag to look closer. “I’d love to see it for real.”

Billy blinked, a little stunned that he’d interested a student so well for a change. “Erm, if you’re ever in London, be sure to make a trip to the National Gallery, then.” He struggled to remember her name. Amy, or Amanda. Or maybe Aubrey. No idea. “’Course, you can’t be a student of art in London and not go. There and the Tate.”

She turned bright eyes on him. “Have you seen it? For real, I mean.”

Billy looked back at the faded slide fondly, “Aye, I did once, years ago now. They, erm. They don’t let you get as close as you’d like. If I could, I’d go over the thing with a glass for hours, finding all the little details he put in there.”

“I would too,” She smiled, bouncing on her heels for a second before rushing off to her next class.

“Well, that was a change of pace,” said Mort, stretching his long legs underneath the student desk where he typically observed Billy’s lectures, then stood to gather his papers together. "Usually you're done with time to spare."

"Aye, well," Billy shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned at his shoes. "Renaissance, you know. You ought to tell me if I'm nattering on about it."

“Sure you don’t want to teach?”

“Jesus, no way,” Billy laughed, “Didn’t you see me just now? Even the eager ones scare the shite out of me.”

Viggo chuckled, tapping the stack of essays on the table to neaten them before holding them out. Billy took them, keeping in a sigh as he thought of the hours more work they represented. No matter what he did, he could never keep up with grading.

“How’re things?” Mort asked as he stacked his folders and reached for his own briefcase under the desk.

Billy scuttled over to gather his own things, shoving his TA notebook and the stack of essays into his briefcase. “Same shite, different day, you know. I come here, I go to work, I sleep a bit, rinse, repeat.”

“I don’t know why you haven’t given more thought to applying at the museums here in Boston, Bill. Your BA would get you a fair enough position to carry you through for awhile, even if you’re just leading tour groups. It has to be better than waiting tables and matting Newbury Street fodder.”

Billy winced, “I know, I just…” he shook his head, not bothering to finish. He had thought about it, numerous times, actually. But he hadn’t expected to have to wait another several months to officially get started on his dissertation either. He had originally intended to be done with it within this year at most, and then preferably he’d apply to museums closer to home. It had been enough of a pain in the arse getting his student and work visas extended as it was. A museum position would mean a commitment to staying here he wasn’t sure he wanted.

“I do all right,” he said as they left the classroom together. It was an outright lie, of course.

“How did it go with Dom Monaghan yesterday?” the professor asked.

Billy’s expression soured as they walked, “Came and went.”

“He didn’t show?” 

“No, he did,” Billy clarified, “Looked through his things and seemed a bit pie-eyed, I suppose, but he worked for as long as I was there. We didn’t… erm. We didn’t talk much.”

Mort’s eyes fell on him sidelong, “You ought to. If he’s overwhelmed he could use your help as far organizing all the work he has to get done.”

Billy couldn’t hold back a snide noise. “He didn’t indicate he wanted any help from me.”

“I’m not blind, Bill,” Mort said quietly after a moment. “I didn’t arrange this to make your last semester any more frustrating than I’m sure it already is.”

Billy looked back at him, seeing the usual soft, yet piercing empathy Mortensen was so good at. “Why did you, then?” he asked, coming to a stop at the door to Mort’s office.

The professor rocked on his heels as he pursed his lips, “I saw two problems and a solution in the same room.” Mort held a hand out to halt Billy’s look of annoyance. “Look, you’re both a bit behind. Sometimes working with a friend can help you keep on track.”

“He’s hardly what I’d call a friend,” Billy said bluntly.

“A peer, then. If the two of you talked a bit, you might discover you’ve got more in common than you think. ”

Billy huffed at his shoes, shaking his head at Mort’s logic, “How do you figure that?”

Mort only shrugged, “I’ve advised you both for the nearly same amount of time. Sometimes when I’m talking to you, something Dom’s said comes to mind, and vice versa. And you have a similar sense of humor, at least when you go ahead and let yours out. You’re both impassioned about your opinions, even if they differ, and it’s okay to differ, you know. You two are like… oil and vinegar.”

“Yeah, we don’t mix,” Billy snorted.

“You don’t have to mix,“ Mort replied, “But sometimes things works out if you mingle. You need to loosen up, Billy, have a little fun once in a while. In a few months this will all be over, and one day you’ll look up and realize you’ve spent the prime of your life in a library.”

“And babysitting Monaghan is supposed to be fun, eh? We’d make an excellent salad dressing together, given half a chance?” Billy smiled tightly down at his shoes again, “I like libraries.”

“He’s a character, I’ll give him that. He needs a dose of your self-discipline, and you could use some of his… lackadaisical attitude,” Mort grinned and then lifted his chin to the end of the hall. “Speak of the devil, showing up for his appointment for a change.”

Billy looked up to see Dom swaggering down the hall with Elijah, slowing up when their eyes met.

“Dominic,” Mort greeted as they pulled even with the office door. “You made time after all.”

“As promised,” Dom grinned, giving Billy a nod of acknowledgement, “Bills.”

Billy exhaled and put a hand out to Mort, “I’ve got to go. ‘Til Thursday, then.”

Shaking on it, the professor waved Dom into the office, and Billy took off in the back in the direction he’d come, toward the east exit of the building.

“‘Til Thursday, then. I like that,” came a sniggering voice from behind, keeping pace. “Shaking Mort’s hand all proper-like. Brownnosing must do wonders for your GPA.”

“You ought to try it sometime, Elijah, considering who’s marking your work every week,” Billy glared, hitching his rucksack up outside the doors and tugging his blazer tighter around himself in the cold as he headed towards the student carpark.

“I meant to talk to you about that, actually,” Elijah said, striding across the frozen lawn with Billy, “I don’t think I really deserved my last grade. I think I answered the question with plenty of arguments, and I didn’t even pull straight from the text like most people.”

“No, you pulled from someone else’s text,” Billy narrowed his eyes, “I shouldn’t have to remind you to cite at this level, even on something as mundane as a discussion worksheet.”

“How would you even know—“ Elijah broke off, “So I paraphrased, big deal.”

“Elijah, look who you’re talking to,” Billy said patronizingly and dug in his pockets for his car keys, “Your brownnosing art history nerd of a TA, aye? I was reading the books and papers you nicked lines from when you were still learning not to wee in your training pants. It’s a simple notation. Students have been dismissed from university for less, no matter who your da’ knows. Be glad I’m giving you a chance, because there won’t be another.”

“How generous of you,” Elijah’s eyes darkened briefly, then slid over the car Billy was struggling to unlock with shivering hands. “Shit, that thing is yours? I thought it was abandoned here. I was going to call a wrecker.”

The sleek silver BMW in the next space chirped as Elijah opened it and dug around in the glove compartment to pull out a fresh pack of cigarettes, shucking the plastic as Billy climbed into his old Nissan Pulsar. It might have been teal blue at one point, but had been sanded very inexpertly, primed and then left to face Boston’s unforgiving elements. He very rarely drove the thing to school, but it had been so bitterly cold that morning that he’d given in to the idea of staying in under the quilts an extra half hour and not walking to campus in the freezing damp for once.

Touching the gas and turning the key, he gave a silent prayer for it to start, hearing the alternator give half click and a sad little cough before slowly reaching a capable chug. Elijah gave an amused head-shake as he lit up the smoke, leaning down to the window that didn’t roll up all the way, “I’ll fix the paper.”

Billy nodded and pulled out of the space, chugging smokily out of the university complex.

Finding a parking place a block from his flat, he trudged the rest of the way home, fought with the lock and gave a sigh as he dropped the heavy rucksack onto the sofa, and the briefcase on the coffee table. Putting both hands on the small of his back, he arched with a groan against the ache of lugging a dozen heavy books around.

He flopped down on the couch, flipping the catches on the case and bringing out the stack of essays. Scanning the top one, he snorted at the first hapless paragraph and tossed it back on the pile, then pulled his jumper over his head and went to start the shower warming, digging around for clean work clothes and realizing he didn’t have any fresh shirts. Setting his glasses on the back of the toilet, he climbed under the hot spray, wishing he could stand under it for ages, wishing the pressure was five times as hard.

It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate Mort’s concern. The professor was probably the closest thing he had to a friend, as purely academic a relationship as it was. He’d imagined what it would be like to go out and have drinks with the man rather than the professor, to discuss something other than school or even art for a change. Secretly, he’d once wondered what it would to be like to be more than Viggo’s friend, though that brief infatuation had burned itself out long ago when the demands of his coursework began to occupy all of his thoughts. But he could imagine being mates with Viggo.

The idea of trying to be friends with Dominic fucking Monaghan, though… the very name irritated him, the cocky swagger, the way absolutely everyone thought he was hilarious. Most of all, Billy hated being the butt of he and his friends’ jokes just because he happened to be in sight. Story of his life, really, it was just another day, another city, another school from primary on up being targeted by the popular kids. The fact that it was the Harvard Arts British Contingent and its hangers-on here on this side of the pond only stood to make it worse.

What irked him more was that Dom was smart. Lazy as he was, Dom’s work had until recently always been top of the class compared with his friends, and Billy could rarely find things to mark him down for. He not only understood the finer points of each artistic genre and subgenre, and could rattle off artists and dates and argue legitimately for or against interpretations of a piece with apparent ease, but he could also speak about technique and theory as one practiced in them, and that was something Billy could not do. Plus he was also cruising through a double major coupling Fine Art with Architecture at an Ivy League university like it was easy. Maybe it was if you didn’t have to pay for it yourself.

The water abruptly went frigid, and he jumped out and dried off, pulling on black work slacks and digging out the cleanest of the shirts he had, hoping a spritz and a quick ironing would freshen it up enough to last the night. When he’d find time to haul his hamper down to the laundermat, he didn’t know.

 

“Ming’s?” Dom asked as they reached his car. “Or do you not want Chinese?”

Elijah finished his smoke and crushed it out, his eyes still watching the remnants of the GSA group lingering by the building’s door in the dark. “Yeah, I suppose.”

Dom flicked his eyes over to the group, specifically the new guy Lij had been staring at all evening, and grinned, “You could invite him along, you know.”

“What? No,” Elijah got in the car and immediately set to hooking up his iPod and choosing music.

Dom shook his head and pulled out of the carpark, “He’s cute. What was his name? Josh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Said the ally,” Dom answered promptly.

“Right. Allied, not queer,” Elijah shot back, “Just fucking drive, I’m hungry.”

“He could be. Could be curious,” Dom steered onto the larger streets, “Entirely straight boys aren’t usually as participatory as he was.”

“Your judgement on the subject is null and void,” Elijah’s fingers turned his pack of smokes over and over, “You can barely pick a fag out of a crowd if he’s already on fire.”

“I can so,” Dom retorted. “I just don’t want the really flaming ones.”

“And yet you bring Jesse Barnes home on a regular basis. As I’m pretty sure the entire building is aware.”

“A man has needs,” Dom shrugged. “I can’t help it if he’s a screamer.”

“You could gag him.”

“Would you wanna watch if I did?” Dom latched on just to watch Elijah’s face burn, “Always figured you for a kinky fucker, Lij.”

“Fuck off.”

Dom drove in silence for a minute before speaking his mind quietly, “You can’t let your dad control your life, you know.”

“You should talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

Dom stuck his pen behind his ear and tilted back in his chair until it balanced on two legs. Billy dived under the table, rummaging in his huge bag for the book he needed, and after surfacing, pushed his glasses further up on his nose as he scanned the chapter index.

“Do you need those glasses?” Dom asked.

Billy found the right page number and flipped to it, running his fingers down the columns of small print.

“Oi, Bills, I asked you a question,” Dom drawled lazily, "Do you really need—"

“If I didn’t need them, I wouldn’t wear them, would I?” Billy answered, not lifting his gaze from the book.

Dom smirked, “Fair enough.”

In the week and a half since this arrangement began, Dom had shown up to Study Room Eight at Lamont, perhaps not precisely on time, but time enough to spend a couple of hours getting a fair amount of his late work done. He’d worked at home as well, sometimes into the night trying to catch up and had for the most part convinced his professors that he was getting back on track and it wouldn’t happen again. Billy continued to ignore him as much as possible, intent on his own work, and now that the imminent threat of failing had more or less passed, it gave Dom time to surreptitiously study Billy Boyd rather than his own work.

He couldn’t help it. Dom was an observer by nature, a people watcher. He liked to know what made them tick, particularly people he didn’t understand. Given a sketchbook or even a blank space on a test paper, he’d often sketch features and other things that caught his attention. The first thing about Billy that grabbed him—not literally, of course—were his hands. They were unusually fine for a man’s, though at the same time not particularly feminine. His knuckles weren’t heavy or hairy, and his fingertips tapered to points, his nails taken short. Billy’s hands were always neat and clean, not like Dom’s, which were perpetually covered in various colours of marker, charcoal and nail varnish, as well as nicks and cuts from exacto blades, the results of drawing and design classes.

When not buried underneath his rucksack, Billy stood up straight, as tall as he could, his weight nearly always balanced, those hands so often hidden in his pockets unless they were tracing the lines on artwork on a slide or scanning library shelves. In the chair across from Dom, he tended to hunch and squint in front of his old chunky laptop. He was neat to a point of fastidiousness, even if his clothes often looked cheap or secondhand. His shirts and khakis were pressed, and while he always appeared slightly frayed at the edges, it was more figurative than literal; he was always scrubbed and clean-shaven.

Today he wore the same ugly vest he’d worn the day this whole fiasco went down, and Dom just couldn’t resist. He hated spending so much time with someone and not getting conversation out of it.

“Do you need the Argyll vest as well?”

Billy ignored this completely, his lips moving almost imperceptibly as he read. Billy’s mouth was the second thing that got Dom’s attention—little and slightly over bitten, curlicued like some baroque cherub.

Dom’s balancing chair wobbled, and he grabbed for the table’s edge, jarring it a bit. It was an accident, but it succeeded in making Billy lose his place. He inhaled, his nostrils flaring in irritation before he started again, scanning from the top of the page. Billy had a particularly fine nose, straight and narrow, a sheen over the bridge of it that made his brass wireframes slide their way down every few minutes.

“See, first I figured it was a cultural thing, you know, being how… ah, nationalist you Scots can be. And aren’t you from Glasgow? It’s very traditional of you, I find,” Dom grinned, “You must impress all the members of the board round here as well, I bet, very conservative. Maybe they’ll let you court their daughters.”

“Dominic, your take-home test doesn’t look to be getting done, so why don’t you shut your gob and get to work so we can both find ourselves elsewhere,” Billy said shortly. “It’s open book and you haven’t even cracked it.”

“No need.”

Billy smirked and flipped back to the chapter index.

“So why Argyll, Bills?” Dom pressed. “Subliminally showing national pride, eh? Because I’ve got to tell you, these Yanks think Argyll comes from Abercrombie & Fitch, they don’t know it was a Scottish county. Or that Glasgow was in it. And I guarantee you none of them have any idea that you schemies did away with your counties back in the seventies anyway.”

That got Billy’s head up, and Dom grinned cheekily.

Billy’s jaw worked, his teeth clenching before he let it go with a shake of his head. “Finish your fucking test, Dom. If you can dig up a load of useless trivia to take the piss out of me then you ought to be able to scribble out a few more sentences.” And he bumped the table hard enough to put Dom and his chair off balance and tip him backwards.

“Oi!” Dom grabbed to get his bearings, and barely got his feet under him before the chair clattered to the floor. Everyone else studying in the room looked up.

Billy clicked his tongue, shaking his head, “Incidently, Glasgow covered multiple counties, Argyll _not_ being among them. But I wouldn’t expect a Manc to know that.”

“Wanker,” Dom righted his chair and sat in it, “Could have cracked my head open, and what then?”

“Then maybe I could get that much closer to starting my dissertation in peace,” Billy muttered, pulling his old laptop closer and typing as feverishly as a man could hunt and peck.

“What’s it about, anyway?” Dom asked curiously, leaning over to find the pen he’d lost. “Your dissertation. Do you have a topic?”

Billy’s typing stumbled and stuttered to an end before he sat back, rereading what he’d just typed and chewing on his thumbnail, shaking his head, speaking almost as if he’d forgotten who was asking, “S’about the… suggestive nature of Caravaggio’s work and the relative ways it’s viewed. About the way his works are contradictory, toeing the line between what the painting was and what he could make it, how far he could push it, without the wrath of the Church coming down on him. _Il Bachinno Malato_ , for instance, or _Ragazzo Morso Da Un Ramarro_. He was a master of light and dark in people, you know, and I don’t just mean his technique. No one else did what he did.”

“Right, because no one’s written about that before. Everybody knows Caravaggio was a lech,” Dom pursed his lips, looking sidelong at him. “Why are you so tied in knots over it? I think you’d have it in the bag.”

Billy blinked up from the laptop and seemed to come back to himself, “Because if I don’t get it done, I have virtually no chance of landing a job anywhere other than an after school rec center, so shut it and do your test.” And he hunched forward to tap out another sudden thought.

Dom scooted his chair in some more and scribbled on the margins of the test, watching Billy’s slender little fingers go. He had spoken in a way that was rare to hear, the way he might speak to a colleague rather than to an undergrad, his voice gone soft and slow and thoughtful, curling around the Italian like a caress. That Billy might have passions and dreams in his life hadn’t really entered Dom’s mind until now.

“Hey Bills,” he whispered conspiratorially across the table.

Billy raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement, but didn’t look up.

“Why Argyll?”

Billy gave him a put-upon sigh and said, “Because it was on sale, you fuckwit, and I needed a vest, alright? S’ freezing here.”

“That’s all?” Dom made a face. “Well, didn’t they have any other colors? I mean, I like the apple green on you alright, and the grey is fine with that, but peach?”

“'S beige.”

Dom sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, “Uh-uh, Bills. That is straight up peach. Like the fruit.”

“Beige.”

“Look at it,” Dom pointed with his pen. “See how there’s a little tinge of pink to it? Peach. Take it from a gay man. We can differentiate lilac from lavender at gunpoint. Although any self-respecting poof wouldn’t pair apple green and peach, you only need one flavor of fruit per patterned knit. It’s in the guidebook.”

“Dominic, just—”

“Are you comfortable with that?” Dom leered, “Not all men are. Professor Mortensen can pull off the pink paisley thing and no one even blinks, see, because he’s got that rugged Marlboro Man thing going on and no one dares say anything, but you don’t really have that going for you. I know some guys who are so far in the closet they can have tea with Mr. Tumnus, and they can still tell that _that_ is peach.”

“Fine, whatever, it’s peach. Question my preferences all you want.”

“No one’s questioning, man, don’t ask, don’t tell. I’m merely concerned whether or not you might be colorblind, since that might present a bit of a problem in your field of study.”

“You know what I can’t wait for?” Billy looked up at him, sitting back and whipping off his glasses to clean them on a tail of his shirt, “The day when I’m down in the bowels of some museum, cleaning a Vermeer or some such. Just me and _The Girl with the Pearl Earring_ , all by ourselves, inhaling solvents together. Because then I won’t have to deal with people like you anymore.”

Dom ducked his head to his paper, pretending to read over his work even as he watched Billy from beneath his lashes. From across the space of a study table, he could see now that Billy’s eyes were nearly the same shade as the green in the vest he wore. “You need to get laid, Billy.”

“You’ve no idea how much,” Billy growled, putting his glasses back on again. “And even if I did, this fucking semester wouldn’t be over yet.” He glanced down at his watch and abruptly started packing up his things. “I’ve got to go.”

He stood, pulled his old blazer from the back of the chair and shrugged it on over the ugly Argyll vest, then swung the heavy pack onto his back. Leaning against its weight, he pushed the laptop into his briefcase and picked his way through the room to the door, apologizing to one girl for hitting the back of her chair with his case.

Dom watched him go, tapping out a rhythm on his test paper with the pen. He’d spent the last year or so taking ample piss out of Billy, but had never once had an actual conversation with him until now. It didn’t stop Billy from being as square as they could possibly come, but for a second there, Billy had been more interesting as a person than as a target.

He glanced down at the margins of his test for Design class, tracing back over the outline he’d sketched of Billy’s upper lip, the jut of his chin and the very slight softness beneath leading to his adam’s apple, finding himself wondering again why Billy had disappeared last semester if he seemed so hellbent on getting out of here. He hadn’t ever given a second thought to Billy outside of school before today. He wondered what outside of the PhD program he had to do, where he had to be after six o’clock every day, what he did for fun, what made Billy the way he was: frayed and irritable and generally easy as hell to tease. What did it take for Billy to be happy? What could he be like when he wasn’t grumpy all the time?

He firmly scribbled out the tiny heart he’d absently drawn next to the shape of Billy’s mouth, dropping the pen and scrubbing a hand over his face with a sigh. The last thing he needed was another distraction.


	4. Chapter 4

“Of course, the Surrealists stood against their various critics, some of which banded together in an attempt to reform the Fauve movement. But these so-called Neo-Fauves never really got the same recognition as either their influencers or the Surrealists.”

“Maryse Casol might argue with you there,” a voice came from the right side of the room. “She’s still making money.”

Billy expelled a small breath, pushed his glasses up and looked back down at his notes, deciding to ignore Dominic’s input. “The techniques in the movement are as varied as the art, though one might question whether or not the techniques are attached to the movement itself, or whether they are just what any artist would do in a moment of inspiration, so… I don’t know whether or not I consider them as important to outline in conjunction with this as your text does. Let’s, er… let’s turn to the following page and talk about Dalí—"

“Mr. Boyd,” Dom interrupted, “I’d like to talk about the techniques, actually.”

Billy tightened his jaw, looking at his watch, “I’m afraid the hour is too short for that.”

“I don’t think it is,” Dom sat back in his seat, clearly making himself comfortable as he had turned the class to his audience, “Most all of us in this class are artists, yeah? And techniques are tantamount to how we practice our own craft. Besides, Dalí gets so much fucking attention and we’ve all heard it before, so I think we should just do the essay on him and be done with it for this semester. But whether a technique is defined as strictly a Surrealist approach or just a creative one is, I think, very important to discuss.”

Billy blinked, watching heads bob in agreement, and mopped his face with his hand, flipping back to the previous page. “Fine. Which of these techniques,” he waved a loose gesture at the list in the book, “do you regularly practice, then?”

Dom glanced idly at the list with certain mischief in his eyes. “Oh, a fair amount. But I think practically everyone has done. I agree with you, by the way.” Dom smiled sweetly at Billy, “We could sit here and laud the merits of Entopic Graphomania as a movement, but honestly, how many of us have done it, really? It’s even fully marketed in activity books and on kiddie menus at the local diner, they just give it a much less thought-invoking name and call it Connect the Dots.”

The class laughed. Billy ground his teeth. Dominic was at it yet again, talking just to hear himself talk and cause a distraction. He glanced at Mort at his desk at the back of the class, but he just seemed to be listening with relative interest, and the rest of the students were always up for watching an exchange between the pair of them. It was no secret on campus now that he and Dom were being made to study together, which was yet another thing to poke fun at as far as college students were concerned. “Make your point, then. How has one of these techniques directly influenced your own work? Unless you spend your free time doing fun books for children.”

“I have been known to, on occasion. Fun books are wonderful for long flights to and from the Motherland,” Dom grinned, happy to have the floor, but looked back at his textbook, “I’ve used a number of these techniques, minus the pompous French names: _eclaboussure, calligramme_ … but my favourite is probably _frottage_.”

The room erupted into snorts and giggles, Elijah whacking Dom in the arm as he covered his snickers with his other hand, Orlando on his other side flashing teeth and fist bumps. Dom seemed to bask in his glory there, keeping his eyes on Billy, who mostly just wanted to throttle him. Really, every other fucking day seemed like it had to be a battle with this group.

“It’s interesting, isn’t it,” Dom continued, “Seeing how many people have actually read the text. Besides you, Bills. You all have filthy, naughty minds.” Dom struck his face in a very stern moue of matronly disapproval, reading from the text. “Frottage. Defined as ‘the act of rubbing materials to transfer color and/or texture.’ I’ll have you know my artwork is perfectly legitimate.”

Billy glanced to Viggo to see if he’d get him out of this. He merely raised his eyebrows. Billy rolled his eyes and tried to rub the heat from his own face. “Perhaps you should explain your methods, then.”

“Oh, I’ve done it in a number of ways and with a number of interesting, ehm, materials. But I came upon my favourite in bed.” The class laughed harder, and Dom got louder, “My god, you people are relentless, it wasn’t like that all.” He might have looked deeply affronted if he could hide the way his mouth curled deviously. “I was very sleepy, you understand, studying very hard, and I reached for my tea on the nightstand and splashed it all over my nicest PJ’s. But I was so tired, I just pulled the shirt off, shut the light and went to sleep.”

“Lots of practice sleeping on the wet spot, he doesn’t mind, see,” Orlando explained.

Dom turned to him fully, looking scandalized, “ _Orli!_ Whatever will Juliette think?”

Orlando reddened, laughing harder at himself, “I’d assume! I’m just assuming here, I mean I wouldn’t know, right? I’ve never, like, seen—"

“Fucking shut up, you spaz,” Elijah said through near tears as the rest of the class were now all red-faced and laughing.

“No, no, listen,” Dom held up his hands, “So, I spilt my tea, right, and went to sleep, and the next morning—" The class finally started to quiet down, as he continued, “The next morning I got out of bed and stripped it, and there was this… butterfly shape, on the sheets, in tea. Like, around my body, the negative space where I had been, were these splatters of soft brown spots and smears, like wings. Like I was a part of this spontaneous image by not being in it anymore. It was sort of a happy accident, really. I still have it. It’s a bit too big to frame; at least I haven’t found a framer who’ll do it yet. Wish I could.”

The class had finally gone silent, some even nodding as they heard Dom’s story. Against his own good judgement, Billy could imagine this piece, the way it was made, he could see in his mind the series of events that led up to it. He could also imagine it framed, hanging in a gallery, maybe even selling for an exorbitant amount of money, though he wondered if Dom was the type to part with something like that. “Is it…” he asked, clearing that imagery from his mind, “Was it an accident, then, or did it inspire you? As an artist.”

“Oh yeah,” Dom shrugged, “I can’t even go to a coffee shop anymore without splattering tea in my sketchbook, using my fingers to paint with it, and on different textures like table tops and concrete. Sometimes use it as a base for a piece in charcoal, after it dries. I’ve even done it on canvas, I’ve tried it with tea-coloured paint and other things, but I’ve never really been as happy with them as I am that first piece. So, you know. I’d call it a movement in my own artistic evolution, anyway,” he leveled his eyes at Billy. “Which is what they’d call it, I guess. The Surrealists. Except they’d give it some bizarre name like _L’Explosion du Thé_ or something equally ridiculous.”

“You’re a wonder, Dom, truly,” Elijah gave him a sleazy grin, tugging Dom’s ear. “You should cut one of these off.”

The bell rang, leaving off all the time Billy had planned to talk about Dalí. The class disbanded, and he packed up his own things, frustrated and rattled. Dom had managed to not only disrupt the class, but to do it while staying precisely on topic. It was irritating, and Dom absolutely knew it. He even had it printed across the front of one of his t-shirts, like he was proud of the fact that he was fucking annoying.

But through the rest of his day, Billy couldn’t get that image out of his head, and that irritated him as well. It was beyond silly, really. Billy had seen dozens, if not hundreds of bad representations of people with wings, so something Dominic fucking Monaghan had created, by accident or otherwise, couldn’t be any more intriguing.

 

Later in the afternoon, Dom had shown himself in Study Room Eight, dropping books loudly and drumming with his pen and fingers, and generally making himself a nuisance to Billy’s own study attempts.

“Dominic,” he intoned irritably.

“Hmm?” Dom looked up, and Billy simply glared at him and his pen until he finally quit the obnoxious rhythm on his notebook and sat back. “You don’t like modern art, do you?”

Billy looked back down to the essay he was grading.

“You don’t,” Dom decided, “All the experimental technique of it, not following the rules, as it were.”

“That’s not the reason at all,” Billy murmured, still reading.

“What is it, then?” Dom asked, “You don’t think a pile of old shoes wired together is as much art as a painting by Titian?”

“Whether or not it is art is subjective, Dominic, you know that,” Billy frowned, correcting an elementary bit of grammar in the essay and knocking a point off, before glancing across the table at him, “Whether I personally find art moving or not has nothing to do with whether it has merit. Just like whether or not you like my clothes has little to do with that fact that it serves its purpose and keeps me warm.”

Dom smirked, “Yeah, but I would think that someone who appreciates fine art could at the very least manage to pick clothes that don’t make you look like you shop at the tightarse department of Walmart.”

Billy flared up at that. “Why the fuck does it matter to you, eh?” he spat, “Why do you constantly have to hound me and get on my case over the most trivial fucking things—"

“Relax, Bills, it was a just a little joke,” Dom laughed, “Why do you get so worked up over it?”

“Why?” Billy stared, “Really? You’re asking me why I get fucked off when you and your gang have a laugh at my expense any chance you get? You’re asking me why it chaps my arse when you take over my lectures, when all I want to do is get them over and done so I can do something more constructive? When you all have a laugh when I slip on the fucking frozen ground instead of maybe doing the polite thing and helping a guy out? How do you think it feels to swallow your shite every single day?”

“I didn’t think—" Dom tried.

“Exactly. You didn’t think.” Billy cut him off. “No, you know, don’t bother answering, Dominic. I’ve taken it up the arse from people like you since I was knee high. Yet another example of your sort asserting your right to be a few levels higher up than the rest of us.”

“My sort?” Dom knitted his brows in confusion.

“You kids with your designer clothes and fancy new cars and trust funds who… who…” Billy grasped for the words, “Who’ve never had to work for anything in your lives, who’ve never known what it’s like to—"

“You think my sort never had to work for anything?” Dom interrupted, his voice hardening, “You think my granddad didn’t crawl out of a shithole and _work_ to get his own business up off the ground and make something of himself?”

“Maybe he did, but you certainly haven’t.”

Dom’s eyes sparked as his tone lowered, “How about having to beg my dad to let me come to school in this Cambridge instead of _that_ one, eh? How about having to take on a second concentration I’m complete shit at so the old man can deign to give me a place at the firm kissing his arse, just so he can tell his mates that I’m following in his footsteps, eh? Better than the terrifying idea of having a son who’s not only queer, but an _artist_ as well?”

“Oh, that’s terrible, Dominic, truly,” Billy’s eyes narrowed, “Wait a mo’, let me get my violin. Tell me, what exactly are you going to do if your da’ stops paying your way, eh? When he figures you can’t design a building for shite and turns you loose, and you discover that the old ‘starving artist’ adage is actually true most of the time? Will you get a job waiting tables or mopping floors? Discover what it’s really like to be down and out?”

“If need be, sure,” Dom shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

Billy shook his head with a disbelieving sneer, “No you won’t. The first time you go a day without a meal, you’ll call up your mum and move right back home, back to the comfort of being coddled, just like you’ve always been.”

“Well what the hell else do you want from me?” Dom asked. “I’m not responsible for your fucking plight, all right, any more than you’re responsible for mine.”

“What do I want?” Billy laughed, “A little respect might be nice. I don’t fucking care wherever you come from, Dominic, but the very least you can do is give people different from you a little respect. One would think you could comprehend that, instead of treating people you don’t know a thing about like the ants you squash.”

“I don’t squash ants,” Dom answered promptly, sitting back and still glaring a bit. “They’re the rubbish men of the world you know, insects. I have a lot of respect for them.”

“That’s nice,” Bill glared back. “The cockroaches get a reprieve and a 'well done' from you, but not me, because I buy my trousers at a discount shop. That makes me feel ever so much better.”

“Fuck’s sake, Bills,” Dom laughed, “Here you are lecturing me on how to treat people while you make your own fucking assumptions. You think I’ve never been teased? Have you taken a look at me lately? Can you imagine how big these ears were when I was twelve? You don’t think even my closest friends still nail me for looking like I do?”

Billy snorted, “The pair of them can get away with it, I doubt they’ve ever taken any shite in their lives.”

“You don’t think so?” Dom narrowed his eyes, “Take a look at Elijah, then. A tiny, pretty little guy like him? Didn’t do him any favours growing up in the middle of Cornfield, Iowa, particularly when his dad decided to take him aside and tell him exactly what he thinks of fags, that he’d better not ever think about leaning in that direction if he doesn’t want to be written out of the family entirely. Eh? That can’t mindfuck even a mildly bi-curious kid, can it? It still freaks him out sometimes being mates with the likes of me. I have to disappear any time his parents’ visit.

“And Orlando? He’s bloody Adonis, isn’t he? I bet you didn’t know he was a fat kid all though school, and he took all the shit that comes with that. The guy’s up at four AM just so he can run five miles before school every morning in the freezing cold. And maybe you’d go a little easier on him if you knew he’s dyslexic, and he still needs one of us to proof everything he turns in, so if he’s twisting a couple of words in that essay you’re checking, it’s probably my fault I didn’t catch it, not his. Not that he’d want you to know that, so just don’t fucking tell him I said anything.”

Billy looked down at the essay, at the small errors in it that he’d noted. There were only a few, but he always marked down for poor grammar; this was Harvard, after all. He wasn’t about to change that. For all he knew, Dom could be lying to cover for his mate’s faulty education.

But he’d had enough of Dom for the moment. He put the essay on the finished pile and searched his bag for a book, as well as the note from Viggo as to what he needed out of it. He held the book out over the table, “I need copies made of pages four hundred twenty-three through four hundred twenty-seven. Forty copies each. Here, let me get you some change for the machine—" He pulled out his wallet, finding only a couple of dollars inside. He stood, searching his khakis, and then the pocket of his rucksack, finding only a couple more quarters there.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dom eventually said, standing and taking the book with a resolute look on his face. “I’ll get it.”

Billy watched him go, irritated that Dom had no problem at all eating the cost of the copy machine, especially after that last little exchange. Just another way to rub it in.


	5. Chapter 5

Dom paused in his drawing to take an exacto to the tip of his charcoal. The model yawned, contagious to most of the class at this hour on a Monday morning, but it made for good lighting through the big east facing windows, even with the cold weather.

Garrett was the model’s name. It had been awhile since he’d stood for the nude class, though Dom had seen him—clothed—at a party or two. He was a Lit major, went to Orlando’s gym, and was straight. One of many guys Dom had made a pass at and been shut down fairly swiftly. Even as he dragged his eyes down the twist of his spine, admiring the dimpling above his arse where he was concentrating the majority of his sketching, he reflected on that memory from last year. Garrett was one of the ones that had been more than little uncomfortable at Dom’s advance. Even this morning, when he’d walked in wearing a robe and scanned the class, he’d met Dom’s eyes just once, and then made a point not to look in his direction again.

Dom chuckled quietly to himself, looking out the window and down to the silver frosted lawn. He didn’t know why he perpetually crushed on straight guys, or why his gaydar was apparently that bad. Orlando had been another, when they’d first met in the SAE house three years ago, though Orli had let him down easily and with more grace than most, becoming one of his best friends in the aftermath.

Outside, Dom saw a familiar figure shuffling from the sidewalk and starting to cross over the grass courtyard. Billy looked the same as he ever did, with his huge rucksack, that tweedy blazer, and what looked like a cable knit jumper beneath. He stopped, setting down his briefcase to crouch and tie his shoe. From this vantage on the second floor of the studio building, the shape of Billy’s hairline was accentuated, thinning out slightly at the temples. He wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves, as he should have been with the brutal temperature, damp, overcast and well below freezing. He glanced around as he stood back up, hitching the heavy bag on his back with a hop and a tug, his cheeks and nose rosy with cold and contrasting sharply with the paleness of his skin.

Dom couldn’t figure out what this new thing with Billy was. Aside from using him as a joke platform with Orli and Elijah and seeing him in passing over the course of the last couple of years, he’d been of little interest. But having been forced to spend time with him had peaked Dom’s natural curiosity. Why was Billy so unhappy with his lot in life? What did he do for fun, to unwind at the end of the day? Why had he disappeared last semester?

Plus Billy wasn’t his type. He wasn’t much to look at, what with his dorky style and common celtic features. But in their study sessions, Dom found himself admiring those things; his hands, the shape of his eyes and mouth, that slightly frayed look he had. Why they kept attracting his attention, he didn’t know.

He felt Professor Blanchett’s presence at his shoulder, shifting in his seat and considering his easel with her.

She pointed with her own elegant hand at his work. “Your shading here along the coccyl triangle, and the slight definition between the gluteus medius and maximus—very nice. But I think it needs a little more emphasis on the other side of the hip, the reflected secondary light. See?” She strode over to Garrett, gesturing between the light and shadow on his skin, “Primary light from the window, shadow, then the more subtle secondary light from the room. If you darken your background and the shadow, the secondary source will be better emphasized.”

“Yeah,” Dom nodded, staring at the arse in question. “Thanks.” Once she strode away toward another student, Dom saw Garrett flick his eyes in his direction, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Dom breathed a laugh, shooting a wink in his direction just to freak him out a little more.

When he glanced back down to the courtyard, Billy was already gone.

 

Billy spotted him coming around the corner of the Holyoke building, his body stiffening even as their eyes met. It seemed he was still hacked off at Dom for flicking little wads of paper at the back of his head in Mort’s class earlier that morning, most of which he’d roundly ignored until he’d simply spun around and ripped Dom’s notebook out of his hand altogether and Vig made a joke about turning the car around that had made Billy sulk horribly.

“Hey!” Dom smiled. Billy didn’t acknowledge him as they strode toward the square and Dom angled to the Dunkin’ Donuts. “You want a coffee?”

“No.” Billy left him and started across the Massachusetts Avenue.

Dom abandoned the idea of coffee, jogging across after him. “Look mate, I didn’t mean anything in class. Dalí bores the shite out of me.”

“Apparently.”

“I like your jumper,” Dom tried, and that got Billy looking at him sidelong with doubt. “I do! It’s very… comfy looking. Where’s it from?”

“Dunno. I got it second hand.” Billy switched his briefcase from one hand to the other, tucking the cold hand into his pocket.

“Vintage,” Dom nodded, smiling. “Nothing wrong with that. You know who I like better than Dalí? Michael Parkes.”

Billy tsked, “Michael Parkes isn’t a Surrealist.”

“No?”

“No. He’s too modern, too commercial.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Dom asked, glad to have landed on a topic. “How many artists have prints for sale in every single frame shop in the universe? You’re the one who said all artists are starving. Parkes is rolling in it.”

“Yeah, well,” Billy huffed. “Some people get lucky, I suppose. Dunno why. His work has no meaning.”

“Eye of the beholder, Bills,” Dom looked at him with a smug half-lidded eye. “Art is subjective, remember?”

As they strode up toward the library, Dom began to notice the lack of students and the university maintenance trucks occupying the frozen lawns.

“Oh no,” Billy breathed beside him as they mounted the steps of the building. He tried the door, rattling it, though it was clearly locked, with a cardboard sign taped to the handle.

“Closed? What the fuck is this?” Billy stared at the sign explaining a water main break hanging on the locked doors of Lamont, and flipping it over as if it would say _just kidding_ on the back.

“It’s been freezing, especially at night,” Dom offered as explanation, “It’s an old building too, I’ll bet the plumbing isn’t up to code.”

“It’s a bloody library, what do they need plumbing for?” Billy fired back, glancing at his watch. “Shite.”

“There are ninety some-odd libraries here, Bills, let’s just go next door to Widener. Or Houghton, even.”

“No,” Billy read the sign again, then stood back and looked up at the building as if there might be a way to scale the walls and crawl inside before he turned. “No, Dom, why don’t we just… leave off. You’re back on track, right? You don’t… We don’t need to keep doing this. Together.”

Dom shrugged. “Mort’ll be on both our arses if I slip again, and you still need help with his crap, don’t you? It’s a library, Bill. A library is a library. Tables, shelves, books. Let’s just go next door.” Dom started back down the steps.

“But I _like_ Lamont,” Billy whinged. After a minute he sighed, scrubbing at the back of his hair, mussing it up. “I just want to go home now.”

Dom paused, then pivoted on his heel and sauntered back. “Okay, let’s go home, then, we’ll study there.”

“You’re not coming to my place,” Billy told him hotly.

“Fine, we’ll go to mine,” Dom smiled, “We can study in my room. I can show you my etchings.”

Billy barked a laugh, “Right, and your mates will leave well enough alone with me there? Not a fucking chance.”

Dom gazed steadily back at Billy’s glower, a battle of wills. Truthfully, he was desperately curious to see where Billy lived, so he just waited for him to cave.

“Fine,” Billy finally sighed. He turned around and headed east down Harvard Street.

Dom grinned triumphantly, but stopped as they moved opposite directions. “Oi, my car’s back in the student carpark,” he hitched a thumb over his shoulder.

“I’d rather walk,” Billy said evenly, turning and giving him raised eyebrows that said, _if you’re coming over, you’re paying the same price as me._

Dom hesitated in the cold, but then followed after him.

“Why so attached to Lamont, then?” Dom asked as they walked out of the university proper, trotting up to walk with Billy instead of behind him.

“I don’t know,” Billy muttered, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, “Don’t you get attached to a place if you spend a lot of time there?”

“I suppose,” Dom agreed, glad to have landed on a topic that Billy seemed to feel like talking about.

“I’ve studied there for years now. I can think better there,” Billy expanded, “I’m used to the feel of it, the sounds, the smells.”

“The smells?”

Billy glanced briefly at him, “Yeah. The smell of books, you know, ink and paper.”

“All libraries smell that way,” Dom laughed, his breath steaming as they trudged at a good pace.

“I suppose it’s what you art students bring to it, then,” Billy said, “The flaxseed oil, turpentine, charcoal, clay. Smells like artwork. Like the science libraries all smell like auger and sulphur and other weird chemicals.”

Dom chuckled at his shoes crunching along the icy sidewalk. “I wonder what the law libraries smell like, then.”

“Bullshit, probably,” Billy said, laughing a bit himself.

Dom grinned from ear to ear. It didn’t matter that he’d been led right into that one, the idea of Billy Boyd making a joke was more fun than teasing him. “What about the mural, then, on the second floor?”

“What about it?”

“What do you think of it?”

Billy shrugged, “Don’t spend that much time on the second floor.”

“Oh come on,” Dom pressed, “I’ve watched you walk down that hallway at least once a week to get to your favorite Renaissance section, liar. Mister _I have my opinion on this, that and the other masterpiece and won’t tolerate dissenters_. Surely you have an opinion on the mural.”

“I’m not intolerant to your opinions unless you’re just finding things to piss and moan about because you know it will interrupt the class,” Bill grumbled defensively, turning them down another neighborhood street. “Even your mate Orlando can’t be so thick that he can’t see historical fact when it’s presented to him.”

“He’s not that thick, no. He just likes getting a rise out of you,” Dom smiled, “So what’s your opinion, then? I want to know what an almost professional art history nerd thinks of my work.”

Billy smirked, “At least twenty people worked on that mural, Dom.”

“Fine then, our work. It’s a simple question. What do you think of it?”

Billy exhaled hugely, “It’s alright. I’m not going to tell you it’s High Art or anything. Half of it is ripping off a dozen different artists, badly I might add, and the other half is made up of clichéd ideas from the soaked minds of emo twenty-somethings. It brightened up the hall, at any rate. What else do you need to hear?”

“That’s good enough,” Dom smiled. “That’s more or less what I thought myself. Although the bit with the rainbow and Mars on a half-shell was particularly enlightened, I thought.”

“Yes, subtle, Dominic, I’ve no idea who could have come up with that bit. Botticelli’s spun a full revolution in his grave, I’m sure. The fig leaf took away from it, though.”

Dom scowled, “Bloody head librarian got her knickers in a knot over that. You’d think she’d never seen a nude man before.”

“Jeanne Barstow? She probably hasn’t. Certainly not one so, er…”

“Hung?” Dom raised his brows smugly.

“Impressive, yes. Even the gods and heroes were depicted with modest proportions, you know.”

“You should look into ancient Egyptian art, Bills. Or even some of the lesser known Roman stuff. Some of the mosaics they’ve found in Pompeii are far from shy about phalloi worship.”

“What makes you think I haven’t? This is me,” Billy lifted his chin, turning in at one of the Mansard Victorians on the block, three stories tall and narrow, with ivy covered brickwork below its dormered roof.

“Really? This is nice,” Dom said appreciatively, glancing up at the façade. This block had to have risen up circa 1890, possibly earlier.

“Don’t fall for it yet, you haven’t seen the inside,” Billy said darkly, bypassing the front entry to a narrow walk along the property line to the back of the house, where several trash bins put out a stench. “None of these are original anymore. These four houses were bought out by some developer in the sixties. Turned them all into tiny little flats, sparing no expense, or historical preservation either.” That last was said with much sarcasm as he descended a half flight of concrete steps sunk down at the back of the house to a basement door, pulling out a key ring to unlock it with a heave and a wriggle. “Wish I could live in the top one, but I’d have to pay five times as much.”

They did a bit of a dance where Billy politely attempted to let Dom through first, though in the tight stairwell with Billy’s huge bag, he eventually gave up and entered, dropping the rucksack to the side and went into the narrow kitchen.

“Not so bad,” Dom said as he looked around, though it wasn’t a place he would ever live, given a choice. It had indeed had a cheap 1960’s makeover, and clearly had not been touched or really basically maintained since. He closed the door on the tiny living room with brown shag carpet that felt as though it either had no padding beneath or it had just worn down to nothing in the years it had been lived on. On the sill of the window—single paned, tiny and high up on the low ceiling in a window well—was a decrepit looking potted plant. The ceiling plaster was badly textured and water stained, and held a chipped, ugly light fixture with a yellow tinge. There was a dingy sofa against one wall with a coffee table, with just enough space left over to walk between the furniture. Above it was a framed certificate for a Bachelor of Arts from Glasgow University, which he’d earned Summa Cum Laud. Opposite from the couch was a short bookshelf. The shelves were filled to brimming with old art books and on top, to one side was a small dusty TV, but no cable box or DVD player. Beside it were a couple of old picture frames, one photo more dated than the other.

“Are these your parents?” Dom asked, touching the tarnished silver frame, but not picking it up. “Are they back in Glasgow?”

“You could say that,” Billy answered from the kitchen.

“Who’s the kid?” Dom asked, looking at the other photograph of a woman who had to be Billy’s sister with a boy of about five on her knee, an elderly woman beside them.

“James,” Billy said, “My nephew. That photo’s old. He’s twelve now.”

“What does your sister do?”

Billy came out of the kitchen. “She’s a hairdresser. Let’s get to it, then, Dom, alright?”

“Can I use the loo first?” Dom grinned.

“S’ through there, on the right,” Billy pointed to a very short, dim hall. “And don’t go in my bedroom.”

Dom peed and washed up, nosing amongst the gaudy mustard yellow sink to discover the brand of aftershave and toothpaste Billy favored, and other silly little things his curiosity had him seek out. Ugly though the little space was, it was kept clean and neat. Out in the hall, the door to Billy’s bedroom was ajar, only just, showing a sliver of a hastily made bed and not much more. The kitchen was also tacky but well kept, mismatched dishes stacked in a drying rack, a trash and recycling schedule posted under a magnet on the small humming fridge.

Billy had already settled on one end of the sofa, a pile of essays on his knees, books and briefcase stacked on the coffee table, the floor lamp beside him throwing a little more light into the dim room.

“Whoever owns this block ought to pour a good bit of change into restoring these houses. Even as flats, they could be really nice with a little update,” Dom said lightly.

Billy gave a little _tscha_ at this. “Why don’t you get right on that, then, Dominic,” he huffed, “And while you’re at it, ask them if maybe they could invest in this new fangled thing called insulation. I don’t know whether they’ve noticed in the last fifty years, but Boston tends to be a wee bit nippy in the wintertime.”

“I would have thought a Weeg could tolerate a little cold,” Dom teased. “You Scots are supposed to be hardy folk, they say.”

“Aye, but we have the beautiful North Atlantic Current in Glasgow. Makes it rain, which any self-respecting Scot can handle, but not so much with bollocks freezing cold.” A kettle whistled from the kitchen, and Billy moved to get up.

“I’ll get it,” Dom said, stepping into the kitchen to turn off the kettle and looking in cabinets to find mugs and tea bags. By the time he brought both back and set them on the coffee table, Billy was deep into grading, looking dead-set on making a dent in it. Dom settled on the other end of the small sofa, opening his own bag and finding the first of several chapters he needed to read.

The hours passed slowly, Dom getting distracted by the silence (he didn’t see a stereo in the flat), and by the way Billy occasionally moved. He’d settled into the corner of the sofa with the essay on his knee, his red pen held up on one hand and that elbow propped on the sofa’s arm. At any mistake, the arm would come down and Billy would hunch to mark the offense and make a note in the margin. Then he would sit back and push his glasses back up. Once or twice he paused and tugged at the collar of that hunter green jumper, stretching and rotating his neck around, the tendons of his neck and his adam’s apple catching the miniscule light from both the window and the lamp. _Primary, shadow, secondary light_ , Cate’s voice supplied in Dom’s head, and he swallowed at the little flutter the lovely imagery pushed through his stomach.

“Where were you at the end of last semester?” he asked curiously. “I mean, you’re so hellbent on getting your PhD and you were right at the end. You could have been ABD then.”

Billy ignored him and continued reading, the butt of the red pen tapping on his temple now.

Dom sat back, “It just doesn’t seem like you to get that far and then feck off somewhere to—“

“I was burying my grandmother,” Billy interrupted, not lifting his eyes from the paper.

Dom blinked, glancing over at the old woman in the picture frame. “Sorry.”

Billy dropped the pen to the paper, underlining and making a short note.

But Dom couldn’t just leave it at that. “Why would that take up a whole six weeks though? I mean, you just went home for the funeral, right?”

“Yes, Dominic, I went home for the funeral,” Billy sighed and leaned back, putting the paper and pen down in the finished pile and taking off his glasses to rub his eyes, looking Dom over with speculative irritation, “What. You’ve never had a relative die before?”

Dom dropped his eyes and shrugged, “Well, yeah, my grandparents, an uncle. I had a cousin die young of leukemia, he was the same age I was.”

“But you didn’t deal with the details. Someone else did,” Billy said, glasses curled in one hand and looking across the room at the photo himself. “I went home to bury my gran, Dom. Which means I went back to Glasgow to help my sister clear out her flat and go through all her papers and belongings, take care of her affairs and sign all the paperwork and put her in the ground and then maybe have some time left over to feel sad about it. And then I had the audacity to stay at Maggie’s over Christmas and try to enjoy the family I have left. That’s what I spent six weeks doing.”

Billy’s voice actually held onto its patience during this little speech, which just left Dom feeling that much more naïve for asking. It also showed a side of Billy he thought he’d never see, that there was something more important than school after all.

Billy looked him over, then out the window at the swiftly dimming light, pulling another essay from the unfinished pile. “You probably ought to go, get your car out of parking before it gets too dark.”

Dom nodded and started packing together his things. As he left and started walking back, he was surprised at these small things he’d learned today, the way Billy lived, the things he cared about. Billy was turning out to be far more interesting a person than he’d ever considered before.


	6. Chapter 6

The end bell rang, and Billy blinked as Prof. Boyens stopped the DVD they’d been watching. Billy had seen it already, and had been trying to use the time to catch up on some grading, but he’d become distracted in the documentary anyway, leaning cheek on hand as he took in the geometry and the majesty of France’s Renaissance Gothic architecture, the differences between the various regions, from Champagne to Loire to the Midi-Pyrenées, the unbelievable interior paintings he so longed to see in person one day.

“Professor,” he called as the classroom cleared out, digging through all the papers in his briefcase before he found the bound report he was looking for, handing it over to her. “’S the essay on influential seventeenth century architects. Inigo Jones, this time around.”

She flipped through the pages, her brows knitting, “Billy, this isn’t due for weeks yet.”

“I know.”

She sighed, looking at him with that motherly sort of worry. “Are you sure you’re not spreading yourself too thin?”

“No, I can do it,” he insisted. “I just… If I finish coursework within the month, I can spend time preparing for Quals, and get them out of the way almost on the same timeline as I originally planned before my gran died. Once I’m ABD, everything will be smooth sailing.” He tried for a confident smile.

“Yes, but you’re trying to fit four or five months worth of work into one,” she said.

“It’s only three classes,” he insisted. “And research.”

“And you’re working,” she fired back, putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking her head, “There aren’t that many students here holding down two jobs, a TA position and trying to finish off a PhD, you know.”

“Well, they aren’t me, either,” Billy remarked with a grin, even though that very thing irked the hell out of him. Boyens was one of his favorite professors, not least because she taught the Renaissance courses and was just as enthusiastic about them as he was, but she didn’t understand his work ethic. “I can do it. I arranged it all with Mort and the committee. It’s only crazy for another month or so.”

“Alright,” she said, gesturing with the report in her hand. “I’ll see if my TA can get this graded for you in a decent timeframe. Don’t work so hard, though, hm? It’s college, you know, you’re allowed to have a little fun.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” he muttered, hitching up his rucksack and making his way out. He knew she meant well, but he’d been pounding through this semester’s work, most of which he’d done once already, the last three courses his needed in order to start writing his dissertation in earnest and get that big step closer to moving back home and getting a real job in a museum someday. That would be fun.

Thursdays were his favorite day, as he only had HAA 129 class to sit through (Mort only made him teach on alternate Mondays and Tuesdays) and Boyen’s Renaissance Architecture and Western Influence, after which he had several hours worth of solid free time before he went to work for the evening. Time in which he was usually his most productive, grinding through coursework, Mort's shitwork, studying, and fine-tuning his proposal to a point where not a single letter was out of place. Even with Dominic around with his fidgeting and inane questions, he normally got a fair amount done.

“Bill,” Mort’s voice called through his office door as Billy shuffled by, gesturing him in. “Have you checked your email today?”

“Not since the morning,” Billy entered Mort’s office and slipped his bag off to the floor beside the chair. “Why?”

Mort closed the office door behind him and shifted through the papers on his desk. Finding the one he was looking for, he sat down opposite Billy, looking over the paper again before handing it across the desk. “We’ve got a little hiccup, here. I’m sure you’ve got a duplicate of this in your inbox.”

Billy took the paper, a printout of an email, his heart dropping through the floor as his eyes skittered over words like _applicant, Doctorate, incomplete_ and _cannot be approved_.

“What is this?” Billy murmured, “Professor? They don’t mean…They can’t mean…”

“Now, don’t get upset,” Mort held up a pacifying hand, “It’s probably just a mistake. There’s some question about the incompletes from last semester that should have been taken off your record. The committee just got wind of it.”

“But I wrote the committee myself, I explained the situation,” Billy stuttered, his voice rising, “They know I’m retaking those classes, the incompletes are meant to be stricken, you said—”

“I know what I said. Just calm down,” Mort interrupted, too calmly for the rising panic in Billy’s gut, “It’s a mistake, and trust me, I am looking into it. It might not be anything but a simple clerical error.”

“A clerical error?” Billy nearly squeaked, “My fucking doctorate is on the line because some idiot office assistant checked the wrong fucking box? How can you expect me to calm down!”

He glanced down at the print again, looking for an anomaly, a joke, and not finding one. It said the same thing he feared he’d misunderstood, that the committee would not formally approve the date for his exam and proposal because of the incompletes still on his record. Classes he was retaking specifically to avoid this problem, and working through the syllabi at an accelerated pace ahead of the other students in order to meet his deadline. Never mind that he’d had to pay another semester’s non-resident tuition to do it. “But I’m this close to being done with everything. I’ve had that proposal nearly ready since last semester—you’ve read it. They can’t do this to me, not now…” He slumped into the chair across from the professor. 

“I know,” Mort rubbed his forehead and sighed, “I’ve already sent emails out to everyone I can think of to correct this, and I’ve tried to reach the committee chair by phone, but only got her voicemail. It’s a mistake, and we’ll just have to fix it.”

“What should I do?” Billy asked blindly, “What can I do? Who should I call, what—”

“I’ve already done whatever I could. There’s not a lot to do but wait, I’m afraid,” Mort shook his head. “Go to your professors. Have them confirm in writing that those courses are being retaken and your current grades in them. That should help. If we have to get a meeting with someone, I’ll let you know.”

Billy blinked and then gave a hysterical giggle, “Fucking Christ. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Hey. I’m on your side, Bill,” Mort shook his head. “I don’t know what else to tell you. The committee members’ emails are there, write them yourself, if you want. But they won’t take well to anything less than tight-assed formality, you know that. Go home, get some sleep, and then tackle it in the morning when you’ve calmed down. It isn’t the end of the world.”

“No, just the end of mine,” Billy quipped with little humor.

Mort sighed, “We’ll work it out.” There was a knock on the door, a student peering anxiously through the half-closed blinds. “We’ll talk more in your next session, alright? Next week. By then this might even be smoothed over.”

“Right,” Billy snorted with bitter sarcasm, “On the swift wings of university organization.”

Billy’s rucksack pressed down on him with a new weight as he left the office, stunned, enraged, terrified. He’d spent all this time working so hard, years and ridiculous amounts of money, and now someone was having a joke at his expense.

“Oi, there you are,” called a very familiar voice, the sound of feet jogging to catch up to him.

Billy groaned, “Oh, Christ, just kill me now.”

“Lamont’s open again, did you see?” Dom grinned, “I have a couple of chapters to read and a worksheet to finish, but after that I can type something up or whatever, if you want me to.”

“Not today, Dom.”

“No?” Dom pushed open the door to a stiff frigid breeze, holding it open for Billy, “Hey, I was thinking, we can go to my house. I promise I’ll get Orli and Lij to fuck off. They may not even be there. I want to show you some of my—”

“Not today, okay?” Billy stopped, glaring at Dom’s stupid earnest mug, and his anger boiled over. “Who is it you know that works in the offices, eh? How much did you pay them to go into my record and fuck up my entire life?”

The cheek dropped right off Dom’s face, “What?”

Billy strode off, heading for his house rather than the library, shaking his head.

“What are you talking about? Bills, what happened?” Dom caught up again, matching Billy’s pace.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Dom said promptly, “Tell me. Whatever it is, I don’t think I had anything to do with it.”

“Someone decided I’ve been wasting all my fucking time and money here. How’s that for hilarious, Dominic? Now go away.”

Dom stared at him through several paces. “Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m fucking joking?” Billy exploded, glaring hotly at him before striding onward, “Get the fuck away from me, I can’t deal with you. Not today.”

He left Dom standing frozen on the sidewalk, and was glad the bastard listened for once.

 

Dom switched the case of beer to his other hand and shifted on his feet outside the ivy covered Victorian. He was pushing his luck and he knew it, inviting himself over when Billy clearly was in a mood and had already told him to fuck off more than once. Worst case scenario, he’d get the same response, so he strode round to the back and down the stairwell, tapping out shave and a haircut with his free hand.

It took a minute for Billy to crack the door. When he saw who it was, he drew an aggravated breath and clenched his jaw.

“Don’t yell at me yet, I brought you beer,” Dom said before Billy could start, smiling sweetly.

“Dominic,” Billy said tightly, pulling the door open a little more. “I can’t do this today.”

“We don’t have to study, then, let’s just have a drink and verbally abuse whoever deserves it,” Dom lifted the case of Killian’s as a peace offering. “I’ll take whatever side you’re on, I promise.”

Billy’s eyes dropped to the case for a moment, shifting the door back and forth on its squeaky hinge, then he pushed it open and strode back into the room, rubbing the back of his damp hair with a threadbare towel.

Dom followed, eyes skirting up Billy’s back, clad in a fitted white under-vest; he’d obviously just come out of the shower. He could see now that under all those silly sweater vests and dress shirts, Billy had fantastic shoulders and upper arms, not purposefully sculpted but still built, probably from lugging that ridiculous rucksack full of books. Their broadness only accentuated his slender little waist, disappearing into tracksuit bottoms.

But to Dom’s dismay, he quickly pulled on a shapeless oversized sweatshirt emblazoned with a faded and peeling Glasgow University emblem and tucked the threadbare towel back over the bar in the bathroom. He came back to the ironing board set up in the tight space between the sofa and the kitchenette, where he was spreading out a white dress shirt to be ironed. Behind him hung a pair of black dress slacks.

Dom busied himself putting the beer in the fridge, and cracking two to bring to the living room. “What’s with the fancy get-up?” he asked, quirking up a corner of his mouth, “Got a hot date tonight?”

Billy’s eyes darted briefly up at him as he huffed, inadvertently putting a crease where he didn’t want one. “Yeah, with my $3.25 an hour.”

“Where’s that?” 

“Morton’s.”

“Oh yeah? The Back Bay one?”

Billy nodded.

“We go there with the Greeks and GSA sometimes. I’ve never seen you there.”

“Don’t know why,” Billy said, struggling to straighten the shirt out one-handed to press the collar properly, “I might as well kip there.”

Dom watched him for a moment. “Only a few times a week though, right?”

“Every night but Saturday,” Billy said crisply, the iron spitting water on the sleeve he’d just done.

“Let me do that,” Dom offered, holding out one of the bottles to him, “You’re making a mess of it.”

Billy snorted, fussing again with the collar. 

“Mate, I know how to iron a shirt, alright?” Dom laughed, “I’m probably better at it than you. In fact, I know I am, give it here.”

“By all means, then,” Billy set the iron down and reached for the beer, gesturing to the board, “You can do my trousers as well. I fucking hate ironing.”

“Who doesn’t?” Dom grinned, switching places, fiddling with the settings on the press and straightening the shirt out properly. Billy flopped down on the couch and flicked on the telly, finding only early news and game shows on the few channels he got.

“So, what is it, Bills,” Dom tried quietly after some minutes ironing. “What put your shorts all in a twist today?”

Billy gave a heavy sigh and took a long swallow from his bottle, pulling his briefcase toward him and eyeballing the stack of ungraded discussion worksheets in it disdainfully. “The death of my academic career. Death by student office assistant.” He gave a bitter humorless laugh, closing his eyes for a moment and pressing the bottle to his forehead.

Dom flipped the shirt to the back and looked up, waiting for Billy to elaborate.

“The committee won’t approve my dissertation proposal because I had incompletes last semester, when I had to leave. I’m retaking those courses, obviously, but the incompletes are still fucking there.” Billy slid farther down against the sofa arm, looking completely defeated now, “They shouldn’t be, but they are.”

“That’s shite,” Dom said, “If you’re retaking them, it should all be square.” 

Abruptly a knock sounded at the door, and Billy lifted his head from the cushion looking very confused. Dom worked the finished shirt onto a hanger quickly, “That’s for me, hang on.”

He went to the door, accepting a carrier bag and divvying out a few extra bills from his wallet for the delivery boy. Shutting the door, he plunked the bag on the coffee table in front of Billy. “I didn’t know if you liked Thai, so I got Vietnamese too. It’s milder, if you don’t like it spicy.”

“Dom, what is this?” Billy asked, now standing dumbly between the couch and the coffee table.

“Dinner,” Dom grinned as he pulled out cartons. “I phoned it in before I got here. I figured if you kicked me out you’d still get a free meal out of me. You haven’t eaten, right?”

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“You’re right, I didn’t,” Dom grinned, pushing Billy back down on the sofa, stripping the plastic from a pair of chopsticks and hand them to him. “Dig in, Bills. It’s the best Thai in town.”

Billy’s eyes grew round as Dom opened the steaming cartons and finally gave in, eating like a horse while Dom ironed out the black dress trousers and folded them neatly over the hanger when he finished. He brought out two more bottles and settled in to a couple of cartons himself, degrading Harvard’s politics and shoddy office practices while the food was consumed and the telly cycled through a sitcom. Soon, a forest of empty food cartons littered Billy’s secondhand coffee table and the conversation turned and turned again. 

“See, I just don’t get your quasi-prep look, that’s all,” Dom was saying. “I mean, you dress like you pay attention to what you put on in the morning, which is more than some guys do, by the way. But at the same time it just looks like you’re trying too hard to be the collegiate wunderkind.”

“Really,” Billy smirked, cracking another beer and resting it on his full belly. “Enlighten me then, with your clearly sublime fashion sense, Dominic, what do you think I should wear that would make me appear to be less of a card carrying geek than I am?”

Dom looked at him, taking a gulp of his own beer, then shrugged, “Sometimes less is more, my friend. You don’t have to look like an old-fashioned golfer. Plain old comfy Levi’s are a good start. You could wear t-shirts over thermals if it’s cold, or a nice button down shirt in a dark color.”

Billy scrunched up his nose. “Dark colors?”

“Yeah,” Dom encouraged. “You’re fair, you know, you’re a bit ginger”—Billy shot him a look for that—“I’m just point out facts, man. Boyd is Gaelic for fair after all, so you weren’t the postman’s kid. Fair people look good in bold colors. You’d certainly catch the girls’ attention. They go all wet in the knickers over your accent anyway, but you throw them all off course with how much of a dork you are.”

“M’not really after the girls’ attention,” Billy muttered, staring at the telly and taking another long pull on his beer. He tucked the bottle between his thighs and rolled his head on the back of the sofa to look at Dom. “That’s what you want to hear, eh?”

Dom’s mouth hitched up at a corner and he took another swig himself. “You coming out, then?”

“Was I ever in?” Billy made a silly pfft noise, turning back to the TV. “No. M’not after anything. I don’t have time. Never had time.”

Dom stared at the telly himself. The confirmation had him mentally congratulating himself for finally managing to crush on a bloke who might at least appreciate the attention, although this particular one was just about as unlikely as the rest to return it. But he arched his brows as he processed Billy’s words. “Never had time? Did I hear you right, mate?”

Billy blinked at him, a flare of the old vitriol crossing his features that he’d let such a secret slip. He huffed a hard-edged laugh, “There you go, then, another wee anecdote to have a laugh with your lads about. Boyd had to work his way up to get here, Boyd shops at the bargain bin, Boyd’s a thirty year old virgin, ha ha, it’s funny. Laugh it up, Dom, go on.”

Dom looked back at him. “I’m not laughing,” he said quietly.

Billy glared back, full of distrust and dislike once again. He tsked and brought his beer to his lips, looking back at the telly.

Dom plucked up a pair of chopsticks and the rest of his spicy chicken and rice, scooping up another several bites, trying to digest this. Billy could be fucking with him. Really, he was a complete nerd, a genius, a bit obsessive compulsive and just so square, but he was still a man, and men have needs, whichever team they play for. That he could actually still be a virgin was intimidating, nearly enough to turn Dom right off.

“You’ve been stateside too long, Bills,” He said, scraping the bottom of the carton to collect the rest of the sticky rice.

“How d’you figure?”

“I don’t take the piss out of you because you’re easy to pick on, you know, and neither does anyone else,” Dom clarified. “You know we’re all a bit jealous.”

Billy snorted, his eyes still on the sitcom.

“We are, man,” Dom sat back, turning to look at him, “I mean you’re Prof Mort’s favorite, you’re smart as fuck-all, you know the material back to front. I wouldn’t keep on your arse if I didn’t like you a little bit. You just need some people skills.”

“Look, I don’t really need a pep talk, alright?” Billy grumbled. “You and I, we study together. We aren’t mates, and we’re not likely to be. So let’s just… leave it there, okay?” He stood, glancing at the clock in the kitchen and stripping off the sweatshirt again, shrugging into the shirt Dom had so nicely pressed earlier. “I’ve got to go to work.”

Dom nodded, nesting up the empty cartons as Billy folded up the ironing board and wrangled it into the tiny space by the fridge. Billy muttered an awkward thank you for the food and beer as he saw Dom out the door. Dom dumped the cartons in one of the bins and strode to his car, rubbing his hands in the cold. He had half a mind to go across the river to Mortons, but that would definitely be pushing his luck.

Back at home, he entered the loft to Elijah’s music filling the entire flat, grabbed another beer from the kitchen and headed up to his bedroom, dropping his bookbag and flopping onto the bed. The volume went down abruptly, and Elijah appeared in his doorway a few moments later.

“Another hard day with the librarian, huh?” he grinned, leaning in the threshold. Dom nodded. He hadn’t told Lij or Orli that he’d been to Billy’s house. Elijah strode in, poking at Dom’s design project with stubby fingers. “Why are you still doing this with him?”

“Mort wants me to,” Dom gave him a canned answer, to which Elijah quirked an eyebrow. He knew him too well to know that even if someone told Dom to do something he’d make the decision whether to do it or not on his own. Dom shrugged taking another gulp and wiping his lip on a knuckle, “He keeps me focused. I get shit done when I work with him, at least.” 

Elijah wandered over casually, sitting crossed-legged on the foot of Dom’s bed. “Orlando not here?” Dom asked, and Lij nodded, crawling up to lie beside him.

Dom also knew Elijah too well. He waited, pulling off the bottle now and then as Elijah’s eyes crawled over him, occasionally reaching out to touch the muscles in his arm or brush over the tendons in his hand. Sometimes, Elijah would be bold enough to cuddle up, push his nose into Dom’s shirt and inhale. Once, they’d made out a little bit until, flushed and hard, Lij abruptly ran off to his room, presumably to bring himself off in private. Today Elijah just lay there exploring exposed skin until he sighed, ruffled Dom’s hair, took a pull of his bottle and left.

It had been this way since Elijah had moved in with him and Orlando, these occasional bouts Elijah went through. Dom let him and called it progress, Elijah trying like hell to work out who he was and not who his family expected him to be. Dom had long since stopped pursuing him, like all the guys he’d gone for and been rejected.

It had started in the SAE house when Dom had, yet again, assumed the wrong thing and been punched so hard his eye was blacked for a month, among the more extreme of reactions under his belt. Surprisingly, Elijah had not been one who simply avoided him at all costs afterward, but had continued to provoke confrontation with any number of bigoted statements to which Dom easily mouthed him down, and somewhere in this extended machismo match, Elijah’d become a friend, even though it had taken him ages to realize Dom would never so much as touch him again. That ball was in Elijah’s court, and he didn’t think the kid would ever really go for it, he’d just keep to the women he often brought home, mining from the friends of Orlando’s girl or the ones in their photography class. Dom had lines to several guys he often slept with casually, arrangements that were purely fun, but nothing more than that. Not people he really wanted to know more about or make time for, in a platonic sense or otherwise.

He and Billy had spent two hours simply eating and talking, and the more Billy had eaten and talked, the more human he had become, from the miserable bastard who had answered the door to the one who had somewhat awkwardly thanked him for buying him Thai.

He smiled, draining the beer. Billy had in the space of an hour, told him unceremoniously to fuck right off, then invited him in for nothing more than beer, food and someone to unload the weight of the world on, without worksheets, that clunky laptop, those reading glasses and a red pen in between them. Billy had, in a roundabout sort of way, given Dom a little of that time he insisted he never had.


	7. Chapter 7

“I think we should just get Midwest or Sebastian’s to cater again, like last time.”

“Not Midwest,” Dom whispered back, “Some prick dropped their chicken wings in my bedroom last time. The cleaners still haven’t got that stain out of the carpet.”

“You’re so gay, thinking about the carpet when we’re having a fucking party.”

“Well, it’s my fucking carpet, alright? Next time I’ll invite the drunken bastards to drop their barbeque in your room and you can look at it when you get up every morning.”

“I think we should get four kegs,” Orlando put in.

Dom shook his head, “I don’t want to be drinking the same fucking beer for months, It took us a whole month to finish the third keg from the last one, remember?”

“Dominic, do artists like Dalí and Rockwell bore you on principle, or is it because you find their work substandard?” Billy’s voice rose quite a bit louder than normal.

Dom shifted in his seat, leaned back as the class eagerly awaited another spat between the pair of them. “Not because it’s substandard, no. They’re just so… mainstream. It’s boring.”

“So it’s merely because they’re popular.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Hmm,” Billy raised his eyebrows, “So, fitting in the common vein of hip alternative thinking college students, things that are popular are boring.”

“Not necessarily, but yeah—”

“It’s interesting, then, how you manage to have your classmates listening so raptly to you instead of to me,” Billy interrupted, drilling Dom with his eyes and tilting his head. “Isn’t it? By your own definition of popularity, I ought to be the most interesting person in this room.”

The class was silent, aside from a few spurts of giggles for various rows, and Dom stared back at Billy, for once grasping for a swift retort for that. “You’re not… uh,” he leaned back, setting his pen in the trough of the pages of his book. “You’re right, I’m sorry, Bi—ah, Mr. Boyd. Sir.”

Elijah sniggered, and Dom smacked him in the leg.

Billy narrow his eyes at the three of them, pulling his glasses off and talking to the class as a whole again, “You know, considering we’re reviewing for next week’s midterm which accounts for twenty-five percent of your grade in this class, and I’m writing it, I’d be paying attention no matter how boring it is. I’m handing you the answers on a silver platter right now, so if you arse it up for yourselves by being far more interested in the Bloom-Wood-Monaghan Midterm Party, the results on your respective GPA’s come graduation time are on you, not me. Now… I believe we were discussing who were the primary influencers of Rockwell…”

“Christ, he's such a tightarse,” Bloom murmured lowly on Dom’s other side, “Should warn anyone who takes his class once he’s a professor.”

“He doesn’t want to be a professor,” Dom muttered back, hunching over his notebook.

“What?” Elijah looked back at him.

Dom just shook his head, pretending to take notes but really just doodling on his pages. He hadn’t really meant to say that, part of that small knowledge of what Billy was like outside of this building. He could feel Elijah’s questioning eyes still on him, ignoring it until he looked away, prompted to turn to a certain page in the text.

He watched Billy, fixing his glasses back on neatly over his ears and squinting at his laptop on the podium. He couldn’t help being a little impressed at the fact that Billy had pulled one over on him like that, and he hadn’t been quite able to snap back with a punchline. But at the same time, he’d had demeaned himself in the process. Billy wasn’t boring.

Later in the day, he caught up with Billy walking toward his house again.

“Hey! No Lamont today?” He asked, falling into step with him and getting a sidelong look of annoyance in return.

“I’ve a lot of grading to do, it’s easier at home,” Billy muttered, belatedly sneering, “Don’t you have a party to plan?”

Dom grinned, “Doesn’t take that much planning, really. We just have to figure out who’s buying what. Why, d’you want to come?”

Billy laughed bitterly, “Nooo, thank you. You can hire out your entertainment elsewhere. I only hope you save time enough to study.”

“I know the material well enough,” Dom walked on, briefly wondering what Billy could possibly be like in a fun atmosphere with a few stiff drinks in him. “You could, you know. Come to the party. I’m inviting you.”

Billy looked up at him, distrust fierce on his face, “No thanks.”

Dom shrugged. Truthfully, Orlando and Elijah would consider it pretty hilarious having Billy show up to a party made up of mostly the SAE fraternity, the girls from Delta Gamma and their GSA friends. He doubted it would go well for Billy, and he wasn’t really sure how he’d convince either of them otherwise. “Did you find out anything about your proposal?”

Billy gave another irritated huff of breath from his nose, “Of course not. That would be asking far too much of the committee to be on top of things, now, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose it would.”

Billy strode on, exhaling heavily, his breath hanging in the air, “I expected to be All But Dissertation in a month. Then all I’d have to do is show up to classes for attendance and do Mort’s stuff, and do nothing but my own research. It’s all bollocksed up now.”

Dom nodded. “Not so bad, though, you can slow down a bit, can’t you?”

Billy glanced sourly at him again, but said nothing.

At Billy’s flat, he let Dom in and dug in the fridge for a couple of the Killians still left over from Monday. They set up in the tiny living room again, Billy in his usual place on the sofa with sizable stacks of worksheets, essays and other homework to grade, and Dom with a whopper of a review for Serkis’ Architectural Physics course, which was the only midterm he felt he’d struggle with.

Still, he was inevitably distracted by Billy’s small movements and sighs, occasional shakes of his head and muffled laughs as his red pen marked up assignment after assignment, tugging at the collar of his jumper and running his hand through his hair as the time passed.

Dom couldn’t believe he hadn’t really figured out Billy was gay, although at the same time, he hardly seemed to lean any particular direction on the whole. But he couldn’t possibly imagine how Billy could be a virgin at his age. Dom had got right on that when he was quite young and in an all boy’s Catholic school, he certainly hadn’t wasted any time getting sexual experiences out of the way.

Billy wasn’t remotely bad looking, aside from the far-too-uptight way he dressed. He was maybe a bit plain at first glance, but Dom had been looking for weeks now, and the more he looked, the more he found Billy’s tidy, common Celtic features endearing. There was something a little bit impish about him, the few times Dom had seen him smile, there was a sparkle of something bright and mischievous. And for all they poked fun at his nerdiness, he wasn’t really so bad. He carried himself comfortably in his own skin, at least without his loaded rucksack, and there was a casual precision in everything he did with his hands, from marking papers to studying the details of a painting to typing on that old computer. Nothing about him was clumsy or unnecessary. The idea that no one, man or woman, had ever taken him for a roll was a bit hard to believe.

“Fecking Christ,” Billy finally set the last paper aside with a groan and sat back, taking off his glasses and pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Dom came back from the fridge and sat down on the sofa again, wordlessly handing Billy a cold unopened bottle, which he pressed to his forehead. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Finished?”

“Yeah,” Billy answered, stretching his free arm over his head and the top of the sofa and held the bottle by his knee. “Christ, it’s neverending. And Vig will just assign more tomorrow.”

“Probably,” Dom murmured. “’S why he pays you to do it.” They were sitting really very close now, thighs pressed together, and with Billy’s arm up the way it was, Dom caught a whiff of sweat and deodorant, half musky, half clean soap smell, the generally arousing scent of a man.

Billy’s glasses were loosely clutched in the hand resting above his head, his eyes closed, his profile close enough to study the exact shape of his nose, the relaxed pout of his lips, the fine brown feather of his eyelashes.

“Bills,” Dom uttered, barely breath.

Billy rolled his head Dom’s way and opened his eyes, so often hidden behind the glasses, now in the falling light through the tiny window, they were the clearest copper green. And they were so close now, Billy’s pink, soft mouth, just inches away…

He leaned in, lifting a hand to Billy’s cheek, and brushed their mouths softly together, just once, pausing to give Billy a chance to throttle him. He didn’t.

Dom exhaled and kissed him again, just a little more pressure, a little suction, his insides fluttering all over when he felt Billy’s lips purse and saw his eyelids droop and he kissed back. Dom slid his hand back to support Billy’s head and closed his eyes, his tongue tracing along the seam of his lips.

The bottle in Billy’s hand slipped and fell to the floor with a thump and a sloshy ping against the leg of the coffee table. Billy reacted as though it was a gunshot, tensing and dropping his other arm from the top of the sofa, curling inward. He looked stunned and lovely, his eyes glazed, locked to Dom’s.

“Sorry,” Dom pulled fully back, completely surprised himself. He stared for a full three seconds before pulling himself off the sofa, away from this awkwardness. “I should go.”

“Right, okay,” Billy sat up, scrubbing a hand through his hair, leaning down to pick up the bottle, still thankfully capped.

Dom gathered up the rest of his papers and stuffed them into his shoulder bag, pushed his feet back into his trainers and found his jacket. When he turned back, Billy was still on the sofa, almost lounging with the beer in hand, watching with an unreadable mask on his face.

“I guess I’ll see you in class,” Dom said by way of farewell, and saw himself out.

When he got to the top of the stairwell and out into the crisp chilly air, he leaned back against the cold brickwork outside for a moment to take the fire out of his skin, thinking he’d just opened up a world of trouble.


	8. Chapter 8

The near silence of a test-taking classroom always seemed to magnify the most insignificant of sounds. Dom sat with two essay questions away from being finished with the HAA midterm Billy had written, listening to the noises of his classmates as they shifted in their seats and gave bored sighs, pencils scratching and pages turning, Elijah taking his nails down with his teeth beside him and Orlando behind them, tapping his eraser on the tabletop.

Prof Mort sat at the front, boots propped on the corner of the desk as he lounged back with the tail end of a thick novel in hand. Dom couldn’t see what it was from here, but knowing Mort it was probably poetry or some Russian epic that amounted to light reading for him. Dom had an advising appointment after his Design lecture in the afternoon, always an interesting experience.

Billy sat alone at the table in front of Dom as usual, a textbook on Asian Influence open and Billy filling a blue book of his own with his neat handwriting, using the quiet of the exam to do what it certainly seemed like he spent all of his free time doing anyway.

Dom had spent all weekend and then some thinking about that kiss. He never even saw Billy outside of these classes and their study sessions, but even through their Midterm Party at the weekend and the subsequent hangover and clean-up the day after, it kept coming back into his head.

It was silly, really, in the long list of people he’d put a move on, this had been one of the most anticlimactic of rejections he’d gotten. It had been too quiet, too soft; he was used to being shoved off or hit, sometimes called a few names, and the other man walking off in a hurry, not the other way around. He wasn’t even sure if it was a rejection, and that had him more intrigued than ever. Billy had allowed himself to be kissed, and for an instant had even begun to kiss him back, and Dom just could not stop thinking of what might have happened had Billy not startled himself out of the moment.

He peeled a narrow strip from the very bottom of the test page that he’d been scribbling on, wadding a piece of it and flicking it at Billy’s grey sweater vest, and getting him in the shoulder. Wadding another, he flicked it higher, grinning when he got Billy in the back of the head where his reddish hair was neatly trimmed, and his hand came back reflexively, as if to swat a fly. Dom wadded one more, flicked it, and beside him Elijah stifled a giggle as the paper hit Billy in the back of the neck and bounced into the collar of his shirt. Billy’s hand rose again, narrow fingers digging the paper out of his collar and bringing it around to see what it was. With an annoyed exhale, Billy shuffled his papers into a folder and closed his textbook, pushing one into his briefcase and the other into his bag. He stood to pull on his blazer and hitch the rucksack up on his back, giving Dom a withering look as he grabbed his briefcase and strode up to the front desk to have a whispered conversation with Mort before he left the classroom, quietly shutting the door behind himself.

Elijah giggled again, and Mort’s eyes pierced into Dom before looking back down to his book. Dom sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall and then back down at the exam questions Billy had written, shaking his head at the request: _Discuss Dalí’s continued influence on modern art._

He made his way to Mort’s office later in the afternoon, still wondering what would happen the next time he and Billy were alone after this. He rapped on the office door, pushing his way in when he heard Mort’s prompt.

“Dominic,” the professor looked up with a small smile.

“Prof,” Dom sat opposite, Mort’s chaotic system of order perfectly normal to him now. His office was always a contrast from his other stuffy professors. The majority of them, certainly those in the architecture branch had offices not unlike those of his father: papers in perfect stacks, if they weren’t in neatly labeled files, minimalist décor, precise parallels and neatness taken to an anal retentive level. The sort of perfection that appealed to architects, in other words.

But Mort was one of those few professors the university regarded as eccentric and unorthodox. Dom admired that about him, with his ranch boots and jeans, overlong hair and goatee, looking every bit the beatnik renegade cowboy far away from home here in Boston, and tolerated only because he was part of the Arts program, and thus shuffled far to the backside of Harvard’s highbrow image. Not that they enjoyed how outspoken he could get if their program continued to get budget cuts, which was often.

Mort shifted a stack of papers out of the way and pulled his keyboard toward him, typing Dom’s name into it before sitting back with a hand stroking his chin. “So, midterm again, for the last time. A couple of more months and that’ll be it, hm?”

“Yeah,” Dom grinned down at his hands, but frowned at that thought. “Wow. Seems like a lot less when you say it like that. Eight more weeks.”

“Eight more weeks until you’re expected to go out and do something with your degrees?” Mort laughed under his breath. “If it helps, just about everyone’s been there at some point.”

“Yeah, but most people know what they wanted to do with it,” Dom retorted, falling back to his old personal fear. Where so many people knew for certain what they wanted to be when they grew up and came to universities like this following that goal, Dom had never truly settled on one thing or another that had interested him. Aside from being an artist, and even he knew that was very rarely anyone’s full time occupation. The primary point in coming here had been to get away from home, and away from his father’s expectations, and he still hadn’t managed to escape.

“Your father still expects you to work at his firm?” Mort asked, as if reading his thoughts.

Dom nodded sourly.

Mort looked back at the computer screen, thoughtfully stroking at his goatee. “Well, your GPA in Architecture isn’t near the same level as in Art, but you should still graduate the program as long as you can keep it right where it is. You can’t fall below a 3.25, though. A Bachelor’s is enough for most entry positions at architectural firms. The rest is down to experience.”

“Doesn’t matter if I’m still shite at the basics, though,” Dom hunched, “I always have been. My dad knows it and he still thinks I’m magically going to fall in love with something I don’t even like. He told me on the phone this weekend that he’s already looked into the Grad program at Cambridge, talked to someone he knows there for me. I’ve spent all this time here because I never wanted to go to that uptight school in the first place.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Of course I did,” Dom snorted bitterly, “Doesn’t mean he hears it. ‘Dad, I want a paint set’, ‘Here son, have this Kinects set', ‘Dad, I want to go to the zoo’, ‘No, we’re going to the architecture museum, it’s much more interesting’, ‘Dad, I’m queer’, ‘No you’re not, have a look at this titty magazine’. Story of my life.”

Mort nodded, “You know I know where you’re coming from. My father still hasn’t forgiven me for selling shares on the ranch when he gave it to me. But that’s what had to be done in order to keep it going and still do what I wanted, to be here and teach.”

“Yeah, but you still go there, right?” Dom said, having heard much about Mort’s ranch in Idaho in previous years, “You spend summers there. You still love the horses and the country, yeah? I don’t want to sit in my father’s shadow and take over the family business. I never did. And that pisses him right off.”

Mort nodded with a shrug. “That’s something both of you will need to come to terms with. Sometimes it takes years. Maybe even working for him for a while will make him realize it.”

“Why should I do that when he’s seen my work already?” Dom shook his head. “He’s seen my final project, critiqued it out the arse even more than Noble has. He knows I’m rubbish.”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t mean you should just give it up. You’ve put in four years worth of work into it.”

Dom huffed, feeling a bit betrayed. Mort was usually on his side, this wasn’t what he was used to.

“Look, I’m your advisor, it’s my job to be sure you finish your programs to the best of your abilities. I remember how many talks we had when you first transferred to me about dropping it. You made the decision to stick with it; I didn’t push you one way other the other. Now it’s way too late, so you might as well finish it off as best as you can,” Mort reiterated. “You are still studying with Billy, right?”

Dom sulked, looking down at his hands in his lap. Mort may not have pushed him, though his parents certainly had leaned on him about it, even his mother had come into that particular argument. “Yeah,” he answered, thinking again about the way his last session with Billy had ended and the look he’d got at the end of class today, “Though I don’t think he really wants me around anymore.”

“Well, it is keeping you’re grades up. And you need to keep that GPA where it is.” Dom rolled his eyes, and Mort leaned in to emphasize, “No matter what you end up doing after you graduate, there’s nothing wrong with aiming for the best you can do. If working with Billy helps, I think you should keep on with him through the end of the semester.”

"I’m about to go do that, if you’re finished, Dad,” Dom drawled sardonically, wanting to drop this subject.

Mort leaned back in his chair, and Dom wondered if he’d pushed too far, but Mort just twitched his head toward the door in dismissal.

He found Billy at his usual study table in Lamont, working as diligently as ever. Dom settled across from him, pulling out a textbook and the worksheet that was tucked into the chapter he needed to read, still annoyed. “Mort’s starting to sound like my father,” he muttered across the table.

Billy looked up from his laptop, his fingers twitching as he seemed to hesitate between inviting conversation or ignoring him. “How d’you mean?” he finally said.

Dom huffed out a breath, happy for the platform. “Expects me to keep my Architecture scores up, even though he fucking knows I don’t bloody care about it.”

“It’s a skill degree from Harvard,” Billy raised his brows, “You ought to care. Fine Art degrees don’t get you anywhere.”

Dom sighed, looking back at his book, “What a revelation, Bills, thanks for that.”

Billy shrugged and went back to his computer, “At least you’d have something to fall back on. Hardly anyone gets to do what they want right out of the gates, you know.”

“What, like you?”

Billy’s head came back up with a glare, “Don’t patronize me, Dominic, I haven’t waited tables for a decade because I enjoy arse-kissing. Most people have to work at shite they hate to get to something else. Welcome to the real world.”

They fell silent, Billy going back to his typing and Dom reading the same paragraph several times without retaining it. It was bad enough having Mort, who ordinarily didn’t give him so much flack about his life choices, sounding at worst like his father on a good day and his mum trying to play devil’s advocate on a bad one. He’d at least hoped Billy would understand, seeing as Dom had made efforts to take his side when his shit had hit the fan.

“Why did you kiss me the other day?” Billy abruptly whispered across the table.

Dom did a quick double take and then looked back down at his textbook, his heart doing a backflip, “I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Bollocks, Dominic,” Billy spat quietly. “I make the mistake of telling you… what I told you, and you move right in, is that it? Another notch on your belt? Tell me, do you win a prize if you bed a certain number of blokes by the end of the semester? Is it double down if you fuck a virgin as well?”

“Quiet down, Billy,” Dom hissed, flicking his eyes toward the other occupied tables. He huffed a breath through his nose, annoyed. “It wasn’t… I didn’t really… shite, we’d both had a couple of beers and you were right there. It just happened, alright?”

“So what did Orlando and Elijah have to say when you told the whole grand tale of your conquest, then?” Billy leered.

“Nothing,” Dom snarled back, “I didn’t tell them anything. You know what? Fuck it, I don’t need this today, I really don’t.” He shoved his book into his bag, scooted his chair noisily back and stood, looking down on Billy’s resentful face, “I did it because I wanted to. How about that?”

He turned and stalked off, ignoring the looks following him out of the library.


	9. Chapter 9

Billy knocked at Mort’s office, waiting several moments before attempting to peek through the mostly shut blinds. The light was off inside. He glanced at his watch and down the hallway; it was rather unlike Mort to forget an advising session. He waited another couple of minutes feeling like an idiot as people walked passed him, though the sight of students lingering outside of professors’ offices were a daily occurrence.

Finally he turned away, his thoughts going to the stacks of essays and two classes worth of midterms he had to mark and the paper of his own he wanted to finish before going to work, though he felt a bit blown off. Outside in the cold, he started across the grass, debating whether to go home rather the library. He had been doing so in the last week or so, mainly avoiding Dom. For the most part it seemed like Dom was doing the same. They hadn’t spoken since that afternoon, and Dom had even left off annoying him in class, though Billy often caught long unreadable looks from him. He still didn’t want to deal with him if he could help it.

“Billy!”

Looking up, he spotted Mort, making long strides toward him in a heavy coat, “I didn’t forget,” Mort apologized, looking a bit disgruntled, “I got caught up talking to the head of the financing committee.”

“Ah,” Billy smiled. “Let me guess. They turned down another bid for slide projectors that aren’t as old as I am.”

“Something like that,” Mort mumbled, “God forbid they let us spend a few hundred bucks for a system that might bring us into the twenty first century.”

Billy turned back to the building with Mort falling into step with him, “I also ran into Candelwahl though, mentioned your proposal problem.”

“Yeah?” Billy lit up, “Did she—?”

“She knows your name, but only because her secretary says you call twice a day. Says she’s waiting on paperwork.”

“I do call twice a day,” Billy scowled. “Only way to get those people to remember me is to crawl up their arses. And I don’t know what other paperwork she thinks she still needs, I’ve given them copies of my current transcripts with all my professors signatures on them. I had my professors sign several copies in case the idiots lost the ones I gave them! Next they’ll be telling me I’m not in the system at all.”

“Well, you know, people work admin at big fancy universities because they didn’t have the clout to teach here.”

“Said the man who had to wait for some old tenured bastard to retire,” Billy quipped.

“Touché.”

Mort pulled the door wide, letting Billy back into the warmth first, and following him back to his office, digging his keys out to unlock it as Billy gave a jolting shiver, rubbing the feeling back into his hands as the heated air made them tingle.

Billy paused once they were shut in, he sank in the chair opposite Mort’s desk and gave a small laugh once there, “I don’t really know what else we needed to talk about, besides my proposal date, or lack thereof. Shite, couldn’t I just go breathe down their necks until they just take a look at it?”

“If only it were that easy,” Mort said, peeling his coat off and hanging it before taking his own seat, “It’ll get done, though, it’s just a waiting game. I know,” he preempted, “You don’t want to wait.”

Billy pursed his lips, nodding at his fingers.

“Does everything have to be planned out, though?” Mort asked.

“How do you mean?”

“What’s supposed to happen in the next two years, Bill? Humor me. How does it go in your head?”

Billy thought about what he expected. “I’m supposed to spend a year, or less, finishing this thing, get P-H-D stuck at the end of my name, and then move back home, or closer to it, anyway. Then if I arse-kiss the right people, I’d get a job at any one of the big museums, work up to being a curator somewhere. Kelvingrove. The National Gallery. The Duomo, or the Louvre, if we’re going for my wildest fantasy.” He smiled wistfully at that one.

Mort smile softly back, but still with something else behind it. “What else?”

“What do you mean?”

“What else, Billy?” he repeated, “Your entire life can’t be your work. Do you want to travel? Get a dog? Maybe get married? Have a family?”

Billy laughed, leaning back in his chair, firing right back, “Do you?”

“Tried it,” Mort grinned back, and suddenly he was Viggo again, not the professor. “The marriage wasn’t for me, but having Henry, I don’t regret that.”

Billy looked at the somewhat dated photo of Viggo’s son on the shelves behind the desk. He knew Henry was grown now, twentysomething and going to some university on the west coast, but it was odd to him to imagine those parts of Viggo’s life. That he had a son at all was part of what had kept Billy from continuing to indulge in his short infatuation with the man years ago, even if only in his head. He couldn’t imagine fitting something like that into his life, even if the idea of a romance on that cowboy western ranch of his was a bit of fun.

That brought his thoughts back around to Dom, and to Dom kissing him on his sofa, for reasons Billy could only speculate. He hardly believed Dom did it for anything other than to fuck with his head, just another way to taunt and manipulate him, and a particularly twisted one at that. He considered bringing up their study arrangement and how they were currently avoiding it. He wondered if Dom had spoken to Mort about him, even if Viggo was somehow even a part of some elaborate plan to fuck Billy’s mind over until he couldn’t recover. But he doubted it. Viggo kept himself far too busy to waste free time thinking up malicious ways to have a laugh at the expense of others, unlike some people.

“I… don’t know,” he muttered. “I don’t have time. Anyway, there isn’t anyone I would want. Nobody but Mona Lisa,” he smiled back up.

Viggo rumbled a laugh and arched a brow. “Maybe when you get to France you’ll meet someone who makes you feel differently. Mona doesn’t talk much.”

Billy grinned back, thinking of Dom again. “Some people talk _too_ much.”

 

It was just after ten pm, and the restaurant crowd at Mortons was beginning to clear out. Only a couple of tables full of businessmen kept ordering drinks around their arguments and bouts of raucous laughter, and the rest of the waitstaff was finishing off their sidework. Billy had ended up working the bar tonight, as the regular barman was out sick and another was on holiday. It was a welcome change from running back and forth waiting tables. And being a slow Tuesday night, he might even get out of here early.

Billy glanced up from the pint glasses he was wiping dry when Sarah seated a familiar face at the end of the bar and groaned inwardly, rescinding that thought. Dom smiled at him, taking his seat and nodding thanks to the hostess. Just what he needed. The doors had just been locked and the rest of the place was nearly empty, he was sure Dom used some insipid variety of charm to get Sarah to let him in. All Billy could hope for was that he would have a beer and then be away, and this torment wouldn’t last long.

He took a steadying breath and a moment to clean the film from his glasses on a corner of his apron, then approached the too casually dressed man at the end.

“What can I get you to drink?” he asked. Dom could very easily be here to taunt and annoy him and complain, but frankly, the big boss was long gone and Billy didn’t much care what the night manager thought.

“Stella?” Dom asked, smiling nicely. Too nicely.

“Can I see ID?”

Dom smirked and pulled out his wallet, which Billy merely glanced at before pulling down a chalice and filling it expertly while Dom’s hooded eyes watched.

“Is it too late to order dinner?”

Billy clenched his jaw, and wiped a spot on the bar, tucking the towel into his apron strings. “No. I’ll just give you a minute, then, shall I?”

He turned away without waiting for an answer, back to the opposite end of the bar and his tray of glassware. It annoyed him that Dom would come this far to irritate him, across the bloody Charles and into the city where parking was a premium. That he’d gladly sit there and bask while Billy had to keep his tongue checked and serve him, watch him eat, be at his beck and call, it was probably a huge stroke to his already substantial ego. Even now he could feel Dom’s eyes on his back. _Go on_ he thought, _you like the white shirt and the bow tie? How about the apron, does it work for you? I’m sure you’d love having a manservant you could dress up and order about. It’d be right up your alley, wouldn’t it?_

“I, ah,” Dom’s voice came back, too close; he had brought his beer and his menu from the far end over to Billy’s workspace and sat down there. “I couldn’t find you in the library today.”

Billy took a deep breath and looked Dom over, annoyed by the very fact that Dom had wandered in here in jeans and his frat t-shirt with nothing but that leather jacket over top, or why the restaurant’s jackets-and-ties policy didn’t seem to apply if one sat at the bar late at night. He pulled his ticket book and pen out of his apron and said, “What’ll you be having to eat, Dom.”

Dom’s grin seemed relieved, and he ordered the filet mignon sandwiches.

Billy punched the order into the computer, nodding at the waiter dealing with the businessmen for yet another round. He turned, lining up fresh glasses, Dom watching as he pulled beers, poured whisky neat and with ice, gin and tonics and wine.

“How long have you worked here?” Dom asked him as he arranged them all on a tray for the waiter to take.

“A couple of years.”

Dom nodded appraisingly, and Billy couldn’t think what about that might impress him. He turned back to his tray of glassware, polishing and stowing them until Dom’s food came up and he delivered it.

“Have you talked to Mort recently?” Dom asked after his first bite, “Outside of class, I mean.”

“Talked to him this afternoon,” Billy answered, polishing the bar, trying to keep busy and not have to look at Dom.

“Did he mention me at all?”

Billy looked up at him pointedly, “No.”

Dom finished the first of his little sandwiches, pausing before coming to the next, looking perplexed. “Are we not studying together anymore? I mean, it’s been a week and a half and I haven’t been able to find you.”

Billy shrugged, washing his hands and toweling them off, “Not my problem, Dom. I study wherever I happen to be.” He pitched the towel into the laundry bin under the bar before looking back at Dom again. “Besides, you know where I live. You’ve apparently no problem at all with inviting yourself over.”

“Maybe you should give me your number,” Dom tried, “Then it wouldn’t seem like I’m butting in unannounced if I can call ahead.”

Billy merely stared back, wondering if this was yet another sordid trick in Dom’s arsenal against him.

“Look, I didn’t mean… I’m sorry I…” Dom stumbled, shaking his head and tapping at the side of his glass. “Can we just forget what happened? I need these study sessions, okay? I have to keep my GPA up and… working with you does that for me.”

Billy looked out across the restaurant, trying to assemble his thoughts. So often in the last week and a half, often shoving right in when he was trying to work, trying to sleep, trying to lead a class, he could feel Dom’s lips on his own—soft, practiced, insistent but careful. And he could feel his own reaction to it, that riptide of endorphins firing through his heart and his limbs and his cock, making him ache. He’d long forgotten what that felt like, and now it was in his head constantly.

“Bills?”

“Why d’you call me that?” Billy asked abruptly.

Dom grinned, but softly, not his typical leering way, “At first because it pissed you off. But now because it doesn’t.”

Somehow Dom was right about that. Billy had long since quit wasting energy being irritated by that nickname, mainly because Dom had moved on to other methods to annoy the fuck out of him. And hopefully, it would only last another couple of months, and then Dom will have graduated and be away from here and from him and out of his head, and Billy wouldn’t have to think about any of it any longer.

Dom set to the rest of his sandwich, looking like he’d won some argument that had occurred beneath the surface of this conversation, and Billy knew that come Thursday afternoon, if he was in Study Room Eight, that Dom would likely find him there. Why it made any difference to Dom’s grades was beyond him.

When Dom finally stood up from his empty plate, he left two twenties on the bar beside his napkin, a tip well beyond what was necessary for a fifteen dollar meal.


	10. Chapter 10

Billy dropped the final paper he’d graded in the briefcase on the coffee table, rubbing his eyes under his glasses before looking at his watch, finding it a bit later than he’d thought it was. With a sigh, he pulled himself off the sofa and to the bathroom to start the shower warming up. He shivered as he tugged off his jumper and the two t-shirts underneath, the bitter cold unrelenting today, especially in this basement flat of his. He hurried to shuck his khakis and get under the slowly warming water.

His day had not gone well. He was still trying to trudge through grading the midterms for Mort’s two classes, as well as the other assignments piling up in front of it. The HAA 89 class had been so disruptive this afternoon that they were almost aiming to pass Dominic’s group in that area. He’d come home to find an atrociously high heating bill in his postbox, due to the fact that March seemed intent on keeping winter around for a good long while yet, and upon making another call to the proposal committee he’d been told they would not address his case at all if he didn’t stop calling.

Dominic had found him in the library yesterday afternoon. They didn’t talk much, just worked together at their usual table. Even so, Billy kept seeing Dom’s expression when he’d stormed out the previous week. It was nearly as burned into his mind as that kiss, the darkly frustrated cant of his eyes, the rough growl of his voice: _I did it because I wanted to_. It was very nearly genuine, if Dom hadn’t been the sort of person who got a laugh out of fucking with people.

Billy pushed the shampoo back through his hair, hurrying to scrub before the water got cold. He probably shouldn’t have showered at all, as late as he was running, but sometimes it was the only way to warm up in this godforsaken place.

Drying off, he shrugged into a clean white shirt and the black slacks he’d worn yesterday, grabbed his apron, tie, keys and phone on the way out, shivering again in his old tweed blazer. He made his way around iced-over sidewalks and dirty snow banks from the plows to his sorry old car parked on the curb. It was so cold the door stuck in its frame, taking a kick and a heave to free it. Getting in, he rubbed his hands together and hurried to start the car. At the very least the heater still worked in the bloody thing.

But as he turned the key, the old Pulsar made a sad, grinding noise that spluttered down to nothing.

“Oh no, no, no,” Bill murmured to the steering wheel, tapping the gas and turning the key again, listening to the engine stutter and try to turn over.

“Come on”—the engine tried—“Come on, sweetheart, come on, be good for me now”—and tried again—“Please?”—slowly getting faster until finally—“Yes!”—it chugged to a feasible start.

He blew out a huge breath, tapped on his blinker, turned the steering wheel out of the space and pressed the accelerator… and the car gave a huge, belching, smoky cough, lurched and died completely.

“Oh fuck you, piece of shit!” he yelled, pounding his fist on the dash, then dove in his pocket for his mobile. As he thumbed through the contacts his phone flashed that his battery was about to die, but he hit the number for Morton’s anyway, hearing it ring once, twice, a third time.

“Thank you for calling Morton’s Steakhouse, can I make a reservation for you today?”

“Laura! I–”

The phone died.

“Laura? Hello? FUCK!” he yelled, throwing the phone into the foot well of the dead car.

“Take it easy, Bills,” came the very last voice on earth he wanted to hear.

Billy closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on the frigid steering wheel, hearing footsteps approach, crunching on the snow over concrete, “Go away, Dominic, before I strangle you.”

Dom stood at his permanently open passenger window, wearing gloves with the fingertips cut off and thumbs hooked in his belt below a down LL Bean ski jacket. His tousled hair stuck out from below a cable knit beanie cap, and his ubiquitous shoulder bag sat on his hip, which he dug through. “Aw, but I thought you’d be happy to see me. Mort asked me to give these to you, he said you forgot them,” and he tugged another pile of essays to be graded from his bag, scrunching up his nose. “Jesus, this thing smells bound for a junkyard. You know how bad a clunker like this must be for the environment? Your carbon footprint is probably huge, mate.”

Billy put his head back on the crumbling foam headrest and laughed, the psychotic giggle of a man whose day and month and year could not possibly get worse, and covered his face.

“That was a good one, right?” Dom leaned closer to the window, “Bills? You okay?”

“Go away.”

“Yep, you seem fine to me,” Dom grinned cheekily.

Billy heaved a very put-upon sigh. “Car’s dead. Phone’s dead. And I’ve got to be at work in…” he looked at his watch, “Fuck, seven minutes.” His hands tapped on the wheel as he swallowed his pride, pushing open the door and stepping out, looking at Dom across its ice crusted roof. “Dom, could I possibly use your phone? I’ll have to take the subway and that’ll put me a half hour late, at least.”

“Bugger that, just let me drive you,” Dom said, hitching a thumb over his shoulder, “I’m parked right around the corner.”

Billy eyed him sideways, eyebrows pinching. He hated the idea that Dom would do him a favor, as much as he hated that Dom showed up when he was in a state of such exasperation that all he wanted to do was crawl under his covers and stick his fingers in his ears until the world righted itself again.

“Come on, mate,” Dom laughed at his hesitation, pulling his sleek touch screen phone from his pocket and holding it out.

Billy huffed, dove back into the car to grab his apron and tie, and followed Dom across the street and down the next block to where his black Prius was parked.

After he’d rung Laura back and explained that he’d be a bit late, he pulled his velcro bowtie through his fingers while Dom smoothly navigated through the traffic across the river, tapping his fingers to a band Billy didn’t recognize from the stereo. Billy furtively glanced at Dom as he drove, wondering what was going through his head, what he was planning on getting out of doing this favor and what he’d want to be owed for it. The car had the smell of new plastics and carpet, and comfortable seats. It took Billy most of the ride to realize they were heated, and his bum and the rest of him was toasty warm by the time they pulled up to Morton’s.

“Want me to pick you up when you’re off?” Dom asked.

“No,” Billy said quickly, “No, I won’t be off until late anyway, I’ll just—”

“How late?”

“Midnight, usually. I’ll just catch a ride with one of the others,” he buttoned the top button of his crisp white shirt and flipped up the collar to velcro on the bowtie.

“I’ll be out here at midnight, then.”

Billy pushed open the door, noting that unlike his rusty old junker, it didn’t stick or squeak and groan at the movement. “Thanks, Dom, but don’t worry about it,” and closed the door so as not to give Dom a chance to keep playing boy scout, crunching up the steps of the restaurant.

Six hours later, exhausted and reeling from an eighteen top full of financiers who got more picky and rude the more they drank, Billy stumbled out onto the sidewalk, pulling his tips from his pocket to see how much he could spare for a cab. None of the wait or kitchen staff on tonight were going his direction, and the buses were done for the night, and just to top off his evening, he discovered that his subway pass had expired two days ago.

A honk made him lift his head to see a black Prius move from a parking space and pull alongside him, the dusting of snow on its roof telling him Dom had been waiting at least fifteen or twenty minutes for Billy to emerge.

 

Billy woke the next morning to his alarm, groaning before rolling over and pulling the covers up higher in the chill. Visions and sounds of his dreams still went round in his head of trying desperately to start his car, Dominic in the passenger’s seat laughing and leering, _If you can’t make it start, Bills, I might kiss you again._

He’d barely peeled his clothes off before falling into bed the night before after Dom had dropped him off. If only he could blow off work and just be a lump, just for one day, the world would be a better place. At least today was Saturday, and he’d have his evening free to try and figure out what to do about the bloody car.

As if his dream was bleeding into his real life, the sound of an engine struggling to start roused him from his morning daze, a very familiar noise, it sounded exactly like—

He launched himself out of bed and yanked on the first pair of trousers and sweatshirt he found, peeking around the thin curtain to see three people standing around what was definitely his car.

Shoving his feet into shoes, he threw open the door and stormed out.

“Oi! What the fuck are you doing, this is my car!” he shouted before he recognized Elijah watching from the sidewalk, a fag hanging from his mouth as he turned to face him.

“No shit.”

“Dom, give her a go again?” called another recognizable voice from beneath the open bonnet, and the car tried again to turn over, again and again until it started, revved and then coughed to a halt, smoke billowing from both ends.

“Nah mate, it’s done for,” Orlando said, then dropped the hood on the whole mess, wiping grease and dirt from his hands on an old gym towel. “Head gaskets are shot, and sounds like at least one of the pistons as well.”

Dom emerged from the driver’s side. “Okay, well, let’s just go get the parts. Head gasket, and piss… thing.”

“You are so metro, Dom,” Orlando laughed, “You can’t just _replace_ shit like that. Unless you want to tow it to a shop and get a whole new engine, and I wouldn’t drop a new block in this beast, it’s not even worth it, man. This thing is barely worth its steel anymore, it’s amazing it didn’t rattle itself apart before this.”

“Pardon me for interrupting,” Billy said sarcastically, waving his hands, “You want to tell me just what the bloody fuck you’re doing?”

Dom chewed his bottom lip. “Well, I was trying to get your car working again, but…”

“You actually thought we were gonna steal it?” Elijah erupted into giggles.

“I didn’t ask you to do this!” Billy yelled, “What is it with you? Why are the three of you always on my arse, doing the best you can to make my life more of a fucking joke than it already is, eh? What the fuck did I ever do to you?”

“Billy, relax, mate,” Dom grinned hesitantly, tugging an ear.

“No, I don’t want to bloody relax, how did you even get into my car in the first place? Why—”

Dom tossed the keys over the car’s roof, stopping him mid-tirade to catch them before they hit him on the nose. “You left them in there. Not as if anyone would try to steal it, though I’m betting they’d be doing you a service there. I thought it would be nice if I got someone round to fix it for you, but apparently I couldn’t even do that,” he looked over at Orlando for confirmation.

Orlando continued wiping his fingers, shaking his head. “She’d dead, Jim. Sorry.”

Billy stared at the three of them in turn and then at the old broke down Nissan, pocketed the keys and then just turned and went back to his flat, shut the door and slumped on the sofa.

It took seven and a half minutes for the predictable knock on the door to sound.

“Bills, open up. Please?”

“It’s open, you fuckwit.”

Dom pushed the door open and shut it after himself. He lingered there, shifting his feet, looking a mixture of apprehensive and angry as Billy looked back at him dully.

“You left your mobile in there as well,” Dom said putting the dead phone on the coffee table, twiddling his fingers together in his fingerless gloves and looking at his shoes, speaking quietly, “Look, I was only trying to help, and I obviously fucked that right up. Orli says you could maybe get a couple hundred dollars out of it at a junkyard, at least.”

“Oh, that will do me loads of good, thanks, Dom,” Billy drawled sarcastically, “That will almost cover my heating bill for the month. I’m chuffed. Maybe now I can grow wings and fucking fly to work. Maybe I’ll buy myself a horse and carriage. No, just the carriage, horse would cost too fucking much to feed.”

Dom huffed and shuffled around in front of the door for a moment. “Well… I’ll drive to you work, then.”

Billy snorted, still sprawled on his sofa. “Why would you do that, eh? Go out of your way to take me to work every day?”

“I don’t know, Bill, because it’s a nice thing to do, maybe?” Dom flung a hand out, then strode over and sat himself. “It isn’t that far out of my way, you know, I only live in Kendall Park.”

Billy sighed, fixing his eyes on the phone. “I don’t want your charity.”

“It’s not charity,” Dom chuckled, “It’s what a mate would do for a mate, isn’t it? At least until you can sort out another car or something.”

Billy stood up, scooping up his phone and taking it to the kitchen to plug it into its charger. That’s what Dom thought, then? They were mates? What could Dom be getting out of this, these study sessions that were supposedly insisted upon by Mort, and now out-of-the-blue offers to help him? Billy could not imagine that he didn’t have an ulterior motive, and everything he knew of Dom was that it wasn’t a good one.

He sighed again, leaning his palms on the counter. If he was going to be honest with himself, Dom had not been quite so bad lately. He heard Dom moving, the shift of his clothing as he came toward the archway to the kitchen, and turned around to face him. “I can’t afford to give you money for gas.”

Dom shrugged, “It’s a Prius. Anyway, I bet your old car sucked down five times as much gas as mine does, you’ll be saving money.”

Billy sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head. “I don’t know, Dom. I can just take the subway. And I’m sure you have other things you could be doing.”

“You’ll lose study time if you take the subway,” Dom countered. “And I don’t have a lot to do anymore, really, with graduation soon. They’ve elected underclassmen to take over duties in the frat and the GSA. I don’t really even have to show up anymore.”

“So how can I count on you to show up for this? On time, every day?”

Dom blinked, “What, because I don’t get to class and to study on time? You really think I’m that unaccountable?”

Billy chewed his lip. Dom wasn’t letting him win, as usual. “Alright,” he relented, shaking his head.

Dom grinned, clearly happy to have won yet another argument, “Seven o’clock, then? Every evening?”

“No, I need to be there at seven. Except today, Saturdays. But I’ll need you to be _here_ by a quarter past six, yeah?” Billy insisted, “I don’t like being late.”

“Of course,” Dom nodded, backing to the door again, pointing awkwardly to it. “The guys are waiting on me. I’ll just… leave you to your weekend, then.”

When Dom saw himself out, Billy expelled a breath, trying to push down the nerves that had come up with Dom here, alone in his house, sat beside him on that sofa again. He went to his bedroom to get dressed properly for his job at the framers, if he was going to make it there on time by foot. He didn’t quite want Dom to be doing him such a favor as to be chauffering him to both of his jobs, and this one at least was only a few blocks away.

Still he couldn’t help but wonder what Dom was getting out of this. And fear what the ultimate price might be.


	11. Chapter 11

Harvard was white with new snow, falling in those big, light flakes that drifted slowly down in the bitter cold air. Few people stayed outside for long, crowding coffee shops and libraries, or simply opting to go home after class. It made the campus almost hauntingly quiet.

Dom and Elijah stuck it out after Photography, trudging through the weather with their cameras around their necks, looking for shots to complete their portfolios before the student show. The small park they frequented in better weather was undisturbed, a white carpet surrounded by silvery trees.

“I can’t get over how close we are, man,” Elijah said, a cigarette dangling from between his knuckles as he adjusted his aperture, shooting the gradients in the clouds. “It’s like the end of high school all over again. But with beer.”

Dom breathed a laugh in response, keeping his eye on a pair of waxwings all puffed up together on a branch above. Elijah had been on this vein for the last week or so, as if it was just setting in for him that their time here was nearly over.

“We should go out, celebrate. Let’s pick up Orli from the gym and hit Bukowksi’s or something after this.”

“I can’t,” Dom murmured, “I’ve got to take Billy to work later.”

He’d been driving Billy to work for nearly a week, and true to his word, he arrived on time, early some days. One evening he followed him into Morton’s and had some dinner, although he had the good sense to let Billy be and sit in someone else’s section. Billy said little on their drives in, sometimes talking about coursework or commenting on the music, though he always thanked him for the ride while putting on that silly Velcro bowtie under his collar.

“I can’t believe you’re still doing this study thing with him, man,” Elijah fiddled with his lenses. “I mean, the semester… shit, this whole thing, it’s almost over. Why fucking bother at this point?”

Dom adjusted his focus on the birds, waiting Elijah out.

“Is Mort really forcing you to?”

Snapping three shots, Dom looked down, turning around and flexing his fingers in the cold. He shrugged, “Mort doesn’t force people to do anything. He just uses Jedi mind tricks to make you think it’s for the best.”

“That’s not a fucking excuse,” Elijah’s laughed.

Dom looked at the path their footprints had made across the snow field, the only ones so far marring the pristine white, and raised his camera to snap a couple of shots of it.

“I mean, getting Orli to try and fix his piece-of-shit car, I thought we were going to at least egg his windows or something. Didn’t have to, though, he got his undies in a wad just over the idea that you had us try.” Elijah giggled, sticking the butt of his smoke into the snow and then pocketing it. “He’s so hyper-sensitive about fucking nothing, it’s hilarious.”

“Having your car break down isn’t nothing to everyone, Lij,” Dom retorted in Billy’s defense before catching himself, but it was already too late, Elijah’s eyes had locked onto him. He shrugged, “He has a lot of shit on his mind.”

“Sorry, you’re good buddies now, huh?” Elijah snorted, though his eyes were fiercely intent. “Study buddies. In the name of Art History and good grades, right? Shit you don’t get from Orli and me.”

Dom snapped another several photos, still caught in Elijah’s gaze, the one Dom often thought of as some telekinetic alien brain scan when he was parsing something out.

“You like him.”

Dom’s pulse tripped a little as he fiddled with his camera under the magnitude of Elijah’s deduction. The moment stretched taut between them.

“Oh my God, you do! I knew it!” Elijah laughed, and then the grin melted off like so many icicles, to something else entirely. “Oh God.”

Dom raised his eyes and his chin, glaring back at his friend with enough fire to deliver a warning not to rip into it one way or the other. Elijah’s eyes widened, his mouth pursing around words and questions that didn’t escape. Dom brazenly lifted his camera and snapped a shot of that look, so rare to see in this last year.

It pulled Elijah out of his fish-mouthing. “You really… Why?”

Dom shrugged as he adjusted his shutter speed, keeping his focus on the camera settings. He hadn’t figured out an answer for that in all this time himself.

“Does… Is he even gay? I mean, like…” Elijah eyes finally dropped away, and Dom nearly felt like he could breathe again as Elijah kept going. “Shit, Billy’s practically asexual. I can’t imagine… oh fuck, I don’t even _want_ to imagine. Fuck you, Dom.”

Dom grinned, raised his camera again to grab a shot of Elijah’s abject horror at his own thoughts betraying him.

“You fucker!” Elijah lunged and Dom backed away at a jog, bobbing and darting until something under the snow took his feet out from under him and he fell hard on his arse with an _oof_ , cradling his camera to his chest as he went flat in the few inches of powder. Elijah jumped on him, grabbing a handful of snow and scrubbing his face with it. Dom howled, not really fighting too hard as they both kept their cameras out of harm’s way.

He looked up when Elijah stilled, swiping snow from his face with his free hand and registering the weight of Elijah straddled on top of him in a way that had only happened a chance few times including this one, the majority of those in the privacy of his bedroom and usually involving alcohol. He could tell Elijah’s head was in the same place, going back to the time when he was once the object of Dom’s infatuation, maybe with a slip of regret that he’d had a chance then.

Dom was still struck by Elijah, though, looking remarkable with the new snow and the naked trees around him, the blue undertone of his skin kissed by winter. While he had become used to letting go of those who had rejected him, he rarely forgot why he’d given them a go in the first place, and Elijah was no exception. He snapped a shot of him without really trying to aim or focus, one he didn’t even dispute.

“Are you serious?” Elijah asked. “Or is it gonna go like they all do?”

“Didn’t,” Dom admitted, remembering again that fleeting kiss on Billy’s sofa. “It didn’t go that way at all. I just…” he glanced off to the side, suddenly a bit shy at the longing he could hear in his own voice. “I don’t know if it’ll go any farther, though.”

“What did he do?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Dom answered, even though his mind supplied plenty of things Billy had and hadn’t done. Billy’d pursed his lips against his own, he’d closed his eyes, he’d inhaled through his nose and out in a warm puff against Dom’s mouth. He hadn’t shoved him off, hadn’t shouted in disgust.

Elijah lifted off him, sitting in the snow beside where Dom lay, still peering at him with those vast penetrating eyes, searching for answers to whatever questions he had behind his lips. Dom stayed where he was, his camera propped on his stomach, held there by one cold hand, his face wet with melting snow clinging in his lashes as he looked up through the tree branches above. A part of him knew Elijah would keep this close to the chest. Dom kept a number of Elijah’s deepest secrets, after all. And he thought Orlando already suspected, from the look he’d got when he’d figured out it was Billy’s old car he was meant to fix a week ago. He hadn’t said a thing about it since, but Orli was quicker on the uptake than he let on.

He pulled the camera up, focusing a shot of the trees and the silent snow falling directly on him. His fingers were beginning to go numb, more now they were damp from wrestling in the snow, but he snapped the shots anyway, sitting up to tug a warm, dry bit of his soft cotton undershirt from beneath his jumper and coat to wipe the lens and cap it.

“What are we gonna do after this, man?” Elijah asked next, pulling out his pack of smokes and lighting one. “It’s so weird. Only a month and a half to go.”

Dom shrugged, still fiddling with his camera. “I don’t know. My parents won’t pay my part of the rent once the lease is up in June. They probably expect me to come home by then.”

He sighed. Going home meant indulging his father’s directives, either he’d become his lackey at the firm or spend another however many years at another school studying to get another degree and just postpone the former option. Billy was right about one thing. His parents weren’t going to pay his way forever, and certainly not if he didn’t do what they wanted. Dom spent most of his time avoiding even thinking about it. He spent most of his time thinking about Billy instead.

“I’m not going back to Iowa,” Elijah said with a fierce determination, reaching for his camera bag and dusting it off. “Maybe to visit, but I’m not going back to stay. Not with my dad the way he is.”

Dom watched him pull hard on his cigarette, his short hair growing out from close crop making him look a least a little older than he’d been when Dom had first met him. He’d come a long way from a few years ago, a long way from the hateful sort of thinking his own father had pounded into him through fear. Elijah may never let his family know what sort of personal inclinations he had, may never even decide to act on them at all, but he still had the balls to decide his own fate and strike out on his own. That was another part of this they were all avoiding, the fact that after graduation, their little trio would likely be split up. Dom lifted a hand and scrubbed the back of Lij’s head affectionately.

“Billy fucking Boyd, Dom, really?” Elijah shook Dom’s hand off, the gap in his teeth setting off his smile. “Are you even allowed to date a TA? Isn’t that like statutory rape or something?”

Dom chuckled, his face heating up in the cold air, pulling himself up and dusting off as much of the snow as he could. He held a hand out, hauling his mate up from the cold. As Elijah brushed off his arse and knees, Dom studied the shape of himself in the snow, the space where he’d fallen, and the imprint of Elijah’s knees to either side and where he’d sat afterward. A memory of a conversation, secrets shared and things let go, nestled in a white relief. He plucked the cap off his lens and snapped a couple of shots of it.

“Billy could be okay, I guess,” Elijah decided as they turned and followed their tracks back the way they’d come. Dom glanced at him with surprise. “I mean, if he’d calm the hell down and learn to take a joke. And if he’d wear something besides fucking khakis and sweater vests. He’d be a real person for a change.”

Dom recapped his lens and pushed his frozen fingers deeply into his pockets as they headed back in the direction of the photography wing. With so many people heading home early, they might grab the dark room without having to wait. “He’s always been a real person, Lij.”

 

 

The following Saturday morning Dom shuffled the stack of developed shots from yesterday along with the rest from the semester into his portfolio as he headed out in the frosty weather. He sighed as he drove along the icy roads, contemplating driving by Billy’s although he had no good reason for it. He’d become so used to seeing him every day, even if it was just during the drive to and from Morton’s, that not seeing him for this one day felt like a loss. He laughed at himself, thinking what Elijah would say to that now.

He was cutting it close, the deadline to get his work in the student show was the coming Monday. He’d never liked leaving his artwork somewhere. Nearly every time he had corners of his photos dinged, or his charcoal smudged by careless hands. And though he could buy ready-made mats for this, he always thought hand-cut mats were better, and chances were the nearby art and hobby stores had been raided by the other students already.

The little bell rang above the door as he came through a small framing shop he hadn’t been to before. There were voices from the back room, and in a few seconds someone came out and their eyes met, both frozen.

“Billy,” the name dropped from Dom’s mouth as he stood in the middle of the lobby, corners of frames and prints all around him. He laughed, honestly surprised and feeling a little duped, “I had no idea you worked here.”

Billy let out an amused breath, his mouth curling a little, “I guess it never really came up.” He toyed with the strings on the light canvas apron he wore round his waist over jeans. Dom had never seen him wear jeans before. Instantly his mind scampered over a dozen questions: why Billy hadn’t told him he had another job, why he might take this one framing junk art, why that apron over jeans did things for him that the barman’s apron over slacks with a bowtie didn’t come close to, why his hair somehow looked more fiery red with the wintry light from the windows. Suddenly Billy was a thousand times more mysterious and gorgeous than he already was.

“I, erm,” Dom started, coming forward to the counter with his portfolio, “I’ve got a few things here, for school. They just need mats, no frames.”

Billy arched a brow, “They don’t have you mat your own things?”

“Well, you can,” Dom shrugged guiltily, “I’m just shite at it. Can never get the maths right.”

“Right,” Billy said, reaching behind himself for a damp rag to clean off the remnants of someone else’s pastels from the counter so Dom could bring out his work. “Let’s have it, then.”

Dom opened up his portfolio, bringing out the photographs first, watching as Billy’s careful hands spread them apart and studied them all. “Will these all be for the student’s show?”

“Yeah. Well no. I’m only supposed to pick five, but I sort of like all of these so I haven’t really narrowed it down,” Dom admitted, knowing that framers generally hated when artists did this sort of thing. “I wanted to get in here early to be sure I can get them matted before Monday though. If that’s possible.”

Billy gave him a look, one Dom knew well and that made him turn his guilty grin to his shoes. Billy didn’t even have to tell him what a sod he was.

Instead, Billy merely looked at the twelve photographs he’d spread out with a critical eye, his thumbnail going in his mouth in thought, something he often did while grading papers. He shifted his feet and his hips in those jeans and apron cocked with the unconscious move. Dom licked his lips and held his breath.

Billy pulled five of the photos aside, and Dom fixated on his hands; the way he handled his photographs only by the very corners with just the narrow pads of his fingers. For a moment he thought Billy had picked out those five, but then he turned his attention to the remaining seven. “You like these colors. You shoot them quite a bit,” he commented. “There’s a whole… sort of ‘cold morning’ feel to them.”

Dom looked, now noticing the common theme he hadn’t really thought of; these photos were all shades of sunrise—cool blues, creamy tans, hints of pink and orange. Billy’s hand lingered on a shot of Orlando in their flat, throwing a pot on a kick-wheel by the big windows facing an early Boston sunrise. He tugged it aside, and another of the cityscape, also early morning.

“The rest of these are all natural settings. Outside, I think. They all go together.” Billy looked up, “I mean, it doesn’t matter in the student show, but for real galleries, they really like a sort of common theme, you know? There’s a chance they’ll sell your work as a collection that way.”

Dom stared, mainly struck at Billy offering him real advice on his personal passion.

Billy shrugged, looking back down, pulling one of the shots of Elijah from yesterday toward him. It was mostly blurry, and half of Elijah’s face was out of frame, but the camera had managed to focus in on Elijah’s eye, jaw and the side of his lips, with the blurs of falling snow all around and the tree branches behind giving the whole thing a fey quality.

Billy left that one in the group, going on to the next. “What is this?”

Dom pulled his gaze from Billy and looked at the shot, feeling a bit of heat come to his cheeks at what it was and represented, and exactly how Billy fit into it. “It’s…erm, me. The shape of me. I fell in the snow, and that’s where I was, and it’s… somewhere I’ve been.”

His explanation was beyond lame, he wouldn’t blame Billy if he looked at him like he was an idiot. But Billy looked up, nearly smiled and said, “No tea on hand, then?”

He remembered! Not only did Billy remember, but he grasped what the idea meant to him, maybe even that the idea was less about the visual than the memory of it, and it was the memory that was important. Christ, he wanted to kiss him again for that.

“Not this time,” he mumbled vaguely, taking in Billy in this whole new element. He leaned his palms on the counter, smiling as he tried for flirty, “I didn’t know you owned any jeans.”

Billy did a slight double take, his feet shifting again which only brought Dom’s attention back down to the neat fit at his waist where his shirt was tucked in, the way the strings of the apron wrapped around twice and tied in slipknot off one hip.

“Um,” Billy scratched his chin, “You know, this isn’t my choice or anything, but I think…” he lingered over the shots, leaving the one of Dom’s imprint in the group and pulled away a sort of generic landscape of a pond away towards the other seven, “I think these five are probably the best. Even if I have to look at Elijah’s mug while I mat this.”

Dom giggled stupidly, thoroughly stuck on trying to apply a name to the exact shade of Billy’s hair in this light on top of being elated that Billy half made a joke. “How did you get here?” he asked.

“What?” Billy looked perplexed.

“Here,” Dom stumbled, “How did you get here today?”

“I walked,” Billy cocked a brow at him. “’S not far. So are these the ones you want done?”

Dom blinked, and then came back to why he was here, looking at the five of his photos Billy had selected. “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, these are good. They have a theme, you’re right.”

Billy stepped to the back counter for a moment, coming back to with a couple of mat corners. “I know they don’t really like you to use any colored mats for the student shows, but…” he used the shot of Dom’s imprint in the snow to illustrate, “If you use a warm white versus a cool white, you can see how it draws the eye to the shades in your piece. The blues pop with a cool white, and the tans and pinks come out with the warm. See?”

Dom did, fascinated with watching him in this space. Billy suggested going with the warm white mat, and Dom blindly agreed, watching his hands carefully shuffle the photos together a fresh fold of parchment off a long roll to protect them, writing Dom’s name on the edge.

“I can get these matted by the end of tomorrow,” Billy told him, “You said you need them by Monday, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dom answered, thinking quickly, “You work here tomorrow too? Maybe I can come by after your shift, since I’m driving you to Morton’s after?”

Billy shuffled uncomfortably, bringing a calculator onto the counter top to make quick figures. “Five of these, plus square feet of mat board, custom-cut fee, and a rush by tomorrow… So it’s going to come to… seventy-six eighty. You’ll pay when you pick up. Tomorrow, round five-thirty?”

“Okay,” Dom breathed through a smile, unfazed by the cost, but aware of Billy’s sudden discomfort and wondering what he’d done now. “Tomorrow, then.”

He shuffled the rest of his shots back into his portfolio, eyeing the folder of his work in Billy’s hands, suddenly considering all the things that could happen to them in a frame shop again.

Billy raised his eyebrows, “They’ll be fine, Dom.” He murmured, using Dom’s name for the first time today, acknowledging that they actually knew each other outside of a business transaction.

He nodded, clutching his own portfolio, and Billy turned back to the door to the rear of the shop. “Bills,” Dom called, halting him. “I like the jeans.”


	12. Chapter 12

When Dom walked into Mort’s classroom on Monday morning, Orlando and Elijah were already there. “Where were you?” Lij accused.

“I had to run over to Wenham’s and turn in the stuff for the show,” he explained, dropping into his seat and nodding to Mort, already settled at the back of the class, as it was Billy’s day to lecture. He’d finished matting Dom’s photos the previous day, very nicely, actually. It was the first time he’d gotten work back from a framer that didn’t have at least one dinged corner, or a fingerprint that wasn’t his own marring his work.

“Always leaving it right down to the wire, you jackass,” Elijah punched him on the thigh.

“You ought to be happy, Kitten, there’s one of you in there,” Dom fired back, scrubbing his head to go with the pet name, which Elijah jerked away from as usual, “If that one wins some sort of prize—”

Dom’s words fizzled off mid-sentence as Billy thumped his rucksack and briefcase on the desk in front of Dom’s and peeled off his ubiquitous blazer. He was not, however, wearing his ubiquitous khakis, or a sweater vest. He was instead wearing the jeans Dom had fixated on at the frame shop, with a wide, well worn, brown leather belt, and a dark blue button-down shirt.

“Wow,” Elijah leered, “What’s the occasion?”

“Must have got one of those brand new donations in at the Goodwill,” Orlando leaned over to stage-whisper.

Billy ignored this, not looking at any of them as he cleared his throat and went to pull the slide projector into position. Dom sat back, wondering what brought this on, but couldn’t bring himself to join into their ribbing. It was too much of a surprise how much a fairly small change of wardrobe pulled Billy out of nerdy and set him firmly into the bloody gorgeous category. There were still hints of it: the over-all tidiness, the cuffs of the sleeves tugged down and buttoned at the wrists, the creases that were maybe not expertly pressed, but clear enough, the collar buttoned up almost all the way. Dom would unbutton at least one more, if not two or three. Or maybe all of them, push the halves apart to get his hands around that slim waist and built shoulders…

A finger jabbed him hard in the side, bringing him back to Elijah beside him with a raised brow and big shit-eating grin on his face, which instantly brought a flush to Dom’s ears. He exhaled, fussing with his notebook and pencil, hands searching for something to do as he surreptitiously watched Billy tug a corner of his shirt out of his jeans, use it wipe his glasses, and then tuck the tail back in, his neat, narrow hand disappearing beneath worn leather and denim… _Fuck_ he thought, heat exploding under his own trousers.

The class had settled, and Billy had crossed to switch off half of the room’s lights so the slides would show, though it meant he intended to talk more than flip slides today. “So, I thought I’d leave off lecturing on the modern architecture chapter in your text, just because it has decent examples and all you have to do to see some of them is go outside in any city you happen to be in,” Billy started off, and Dom sat up a bit, surprised and more than delighted; he’d got more than enough of the crap in this chapter from his father his whole life. Billy went on, “Although, if you look at your syllabus, you still have to read it and turn in the essay questions at the end by your next class, so don’t get too excited about it.”

Dom twirled his pencil in his fingers, deaf to Orlando and Elijah’s whispers beside him and watching Billy bend over in those jeans to retrieve a few sheets of his notes that had slid to the floor.

“So,” Billy stood back up, pushing up his glasses and glancing at the papers before he set them on the podium and looked up over the heads of the class. “Something we never discussed, since we’re basically up to the Modern Era that is continuing today, is how art continues to be a respectable career.”

There was a pause as the class shifted and squirmed under the idea of a whole class of discussion with Mr. Boyd, the TA who hating lecturing and seemed to hate discussion even more.

“I mean, it isn’t quite the same, is it? Few people today get to apprentice under Masters the likes of Da Vinci or Caravaggio, or spend forty years of your life painting the ceilings of cathedrals and castles for royalty, yeah?

“But it does still happen. There’s a painter by the name of Rupert Alexander who has regularly been commissioned by the British Royal Family. He’s painted the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince William—” a few of the girls in the class giggled, and Dom smirked. Even Billy rolled his eyes and gave the loudest of the girls a little smile—“Now, I bet you don’t know this: Alexander is the youngest artist to paint the Royal Family in over three centuries. He was just twenty-three the first time they commissioned him. How many of you in this class are ‘round that age?”

Most of the class raised their hands, including Dom and his mates.

“Can you imagine that, now?” Billy opened his arms in wide gesture, “Imagine you’re fresh out of school—which some of you will be in a couple of months—and now you’re at Buckingham Palace with bonnie Prince William sitting in front of you for a portrait, by you, that people hundreds of years from now are going to see,” he stepped forward to pick up the book from the desk of the girl who had giggled, “in a textbook, like this one. Well, probably not like this one, it’ll be one of those trekkie Kindle sort of things.”

Several people laughed at that, and Billy gave a twee grin that made Dom’s heart squeeze as he went back to the podium.

“So,” Billy shifted his notes around, “Let’s see how many of you know any of today’s successful artists by name. Hmm? Just call them out if you know any.”

Orlando took the bait, “Depends on what you consider successful, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Billy pointed at him, “Absolutely, it does. That’s actually a better question to start with. What defines artistic success today?”

“Making money,” someone called out. “Gallery showings. Not little stuff, but big exhibitions,” said another. “Both!”

“All of those are good points,” Billy nodded, “Exhibitions. Selling your work. Selling your work to people who will pay exorbitant amounts of money for it. What about getting a wall in a museum?” he asked, “That sort of thing merits an invitation, or the museum itself invests the cash to buy your piece. Right? So, give me names. Most successful artists still living or who’ve lived within your lifetimes. You can base it on money or galleries or museum interest or whatever.”

The class went quiet for a bit before someone tentatively answered, “Jasper Johns.”

Billy pointed to the speaker, then went to the white board to write the name down. “Yes. There’s an artist who sells pieces for millions. Who else?”

“Lucien Freud.”

Billy wrote that one down with a smile, “Very good, Vanessa. Lucien Freud. One of his paintings sold for a record thirty-three million dollars, and that was before he died last year. Others?”

“Thomas Kincade?” one girl said, and the room collectively groaned. Billy laughed and wrinkled his nose. “Sadly, yes. Even if you don’t like his stuff, you have to admit, the man has been successful. Marketing is a powerful thing, remember that. Anyone else?”

“Louise Bourgeois.”

“Yes!” Billy fired back with excitement, “Definitely her. You all ought to have seen photos of her spider-themed _Maman_ , even if you didn’t know who made it. Bourgeois’ art is intensely personal, and some people have even given her the moniker as the mother of the Confessional Movement, even though one could argue it’s not really a movement at all and all art is confessional of sorts. Any others?”

“Anselm Kiefer,” Dom offered, trying to toss one out he didn’t think Billy might know.

Billy turned around and met his eyes, before he added the name to the board. “Yes, Dom. Which should go to show you all there are new movements in art all the time. Kiefer’s been associated with Neo-Expressionism, New Symbolism, and Surrealism. If you aren’t writing these down, you should be, and look them up when you get home.”

Putting down the marker, he went back to the podium, trying to wipe the remnants of it off his skin. “Alright, what about artists who don’t do much in the way of big exhibitions? They might not be making millions or hanging in museums, but their artwork is still their bread and butter, it still pays the bills.”

He leaned his elbows on the podium as no one answered. “What about illustrators of movie posters? Not the quick, slapped together photoshopped shite, but the old fashioned, hand drawn and painted posters. I’d wager that even if none of you know Drew Struzan by name, every single one of you recognizes his work.” He clicked on the slide projector through the famous posters from _Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones_ , and _Harry Potter_ , getting nods and murmurs from everyone.

“Come to that, what about comic book artists?” Billy continued, “And concept artists for all those Playstation games you lot like, eh? People who illustrate book covers and children’s books, mat painters for big Hollywood films, even tattooists. All of this falls into the realm of visual art as a career.”

Billy looked around at the faces in the room, “Most of you in the room are artists in some form or another, whether what you do is paint, or draw, or sculpt, or take photographs,” his gaze flicked towards Dom and quickly away, “or something else altogether. Maybe some of you have already sold commissions over the internet, or got yourselves a little gallery spot on Newbury like our own Prof Mort here. Everybody starts somewhere, right?” The class giggled and Mort waved from the back of the room, “So, even though people like Lucien Freud and Anselm Keifer and even Thomas fecking Kincade are making a mint off of paintings that has well-earned the right to hang in galleries and museums and framing shops around the world, never discount the artwork that you see every single day, all around you. Because all of it has merit.”

Billy’s lecture stood out and pulsed in Dom’s head through the rest of the day, so when he caught up with him coming out of the Holyoke that afternoon, he was still struck at this new side of him, in those clothes and this different attitude. It helped that the weather had finally broken over Cambridge and the bright sun and blue sky was making him squint as the snow and ice ran in puddles around them.

“Hey,” Dom jogged up to him. Billy nodded acknowledgement, striding along with a small smile on his face.

“Something’s different with you, man,” Dom tried to coax more of that smile out.

Billy nodded again, scuffing his shoes as they waited at a crosswalk. “My proposal date came through.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Billy grinned up at him, “Got the email this morning. ‘S down for the end of April.”

Dom slapped him on the arm, “That’s fucking great! That’s… we should celebrate or something. Get a beer. Fuck that, let’s get a whiskey.”

But Billy shook his head anxiously, even as he kept smiling. “Nooo. I’ve work, Dom. Anyway, all it means is that I’ve got a lot of shite to get done between now and then. I don’t have time to celebrate.”

“Well, we should do something,” Dom prodded, “Let’s get some food at least. We’ll pick something up and bring it back to yours. I’ll buy.”

“Yeah, alright,” Billy acquiesced, and Dom grinned wide, clapped his shoulder again turned toward the student parking. “See, you’ll have your Doctorate before you know it.”

 

 

“So, that was an interesting lecture this morning,” Dom said, now settled into Billy’s tiny living room with big, messy sandwiches and packets of crisps between them, rucksacks and studying forgotten in favor of food. He started on the second half of his sandwich, chewed and swallowed his bite before he finished his thought, “You even had the lads paying attention.”

Billy snorted, picking through his crisps and nodding, “Yeah. Surprised me too.”

“I didn’t think you would’ve known Kiefer.”

“I know Kiefer, Dom.” Billy shook his head with a smile, wiping his mouth. “I did an article on him for Art Review magazine. Did one on Bourgeois, too, the next year.”

Dom took that in, finishing his sandwich, and setting his empty plate on the coffee table. “I saw Kiefer’s exhibition at the Guggenheim Bilbao a few years ago, on holiday with my parents. My dad kept trying to pull me to the building itself, to look at the fucking bracing joints in the ceiling.”

Billy wadded his napkin in his hands, separating it carefully at the fold. “Christ, I’d love to see the Guggenheim,” he murmured with longing. He stood up, taking his and Dom’s plates and the rubbish into the kitchen. Dom followed him after a moment, picking up on Billy’s yearning and riding it with his own. Leaning against the opposite worktop, he watched Billy’s shoulders shift under the dark blue shirt as he rinsed their dishes, straying down to his perk little arse under loose, comfortable denim.

“You finally took my advice, I see.”

“Hmm?”

“Your clothes.”

Billy set the second plate in the draining board and dried his hands, turning to face him and looking down at his clothes, both sheepish and pleased. “Yeah? I haven’t had a way to get down to the laundermat this week, so. I never wear this shirt. My sister gave it to me for Christmas and it doesn’t go with anything else I have.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Dom grinned, taking the opportunity to look Billy up and down. He pushed off the counter and approached hesitantly. “Here, let me see something.”

He took Billy’s left arm, unbuttoned the cuff and rolled it up to just below his elbow, and did the same with the other. He considered tugging the tail out loose, but that would cover up the belt that accented his slender little hips so well. Instead, he reached up on the premise of straightening the collar. When Billy allowed this, he pulled open that second button, exposing just a little gingery chest hair. He’d probably be pushing his luck if he went for a third.

Billy’s eyes remained on his face throughout, searching his features, and Dom met them again with a smile, stepping back to look at the overall picture he’d made. “You look good.”

They stood staring at each other, the air nearly crackling between them with wariness and possibilities and confusion. Dom’s heart thumped a rhythm against his ribcage. In any other situation, with any other person, he would have made his intentions clear and snogged him already, but he was just unsure of everything with this man. He swallowed that notion and licked his lips, dropping his eyes to the chipped linoleum.

“Right, well. I guess we should get to work, then,” Billy’s feet shuffled awkwardly back, and then to one side, toward the living room.

 _Fuck that_ , Dom abruptly changed his mind, tired of all this tiptoeing, and caught Billy by the arm to reel him back.

He made a surprised noise as Dom spun him, pressing him against the counter, wrapping his arms around that warm, slender little waist as he sucked that gorgeous bottom lip into his mouth. Billy gasped, his lips parting, and Dom slipped his tongue between them lightly, not too much, suddenly afraid of freaking Billy out again.

Billy’s hands finally rose from their stunned flailing and lit on Dom’s shoulders, then his head, first grasping Dom’s ears and then wrapping his arms around Dom’s neck, his mouth opening on a moan. Dom’s breath exploded from him, unaware he’d been holding it, and pounced back on Billy’s mouth, their tongues twining, bodies pressed together from mouth to knee, wanting Billy to feel that he’d been maintaining a steady stiff nearly since he’d had walked into class this morning.

“Dom, God,” Billy breathed, tearing his mouth from Dom’s for air. Dom took advantage and kissed his way along Billy’s jaw to his ear, nibbling, thrilled at the way Billy’s breath hitched and he writhed beneath Dom’s hands. Dom grinned against skin, giggling at the absurdity of all this. “You look really fucking good, Bills,” he rasped in Billy’s ear.

“Fuck,” Billy hissed, then propelled him backwards to pin him against the sink, his hands plucking and shoving at his shirt, rucking it up under his armpits until Dom instinctively raised his arms to let Billy whip it off over his head. “Fuck,” he repeated, his hands roving all over his warm naked skin.

Dom huffed a breathless laugh, “Ah, I dunno if you’re ready for that.”

Billy’s sharp little teeth nipped his jaw, his tongue smoothing over the bites as his fingers found and then twisted a nipple hard enough to get Dom to bark out a shocked noise. “Dom, I want… I need to just… please.”

“Jesus,” Dom gasped, his head reeling, and then he was being yanked out of the kitchen and pushed through the door to the tiny bedroom, Billy’s bedroom that was strictly off limits in all the times he’d been here.

He didn’t get much of a chance to take in his surroundings as Billy shoved him down on the bed and climbed on top of him, diving onto his mouth again like a starving man. His hands were everywhere, his breath coming fast and heavy, his wicked little mouth all fury and desperation.

Dom finally managed to break off and held Billy back a bit, “Jesus, slow down, Bills, you’re… this is…” he laughed breathlessly again. “You’re moving a bit fast for a first timer.”

Billy sat back on Dom’s thighs, breathing hard and giving a laugh himself, “Shite, Dominic, I might be new at this, but I’m no fucking prude, all right? You think I don’t toss off to the same internet porn as you? I want to get off, you want to, this is a fine plan, don’t you think?”

Dom sat up, sliding his hands around Billy’s waist, “Alright, but just… let’s slow it down a little, you know? I just… I don’t want to be the prick you regret.”

“You’re already the prick I regret,” Billy grinned, his eyes dropped to Dom’s mouth again. “You’re a fucking tease. I just… I need a little… I want to get off, and it doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“I know, but…”

“Jesus fucking Christ, do you never shut up?” Billy grabbed the back of his head and kissed him hard. “You drive me fucking crazy, you know that?”

Dom grinned, pleased as hell, dropping his voice low, “I can drive you even crazier, if you let me.” His hands slid down, tugging the tails of the shirt out, weaseling under them to find warm skin over Billy’s hips, letting his thumbs dip beneath the waist of his jeans and rub matching circles on either side. “Feels good, yeah?”

Billy’s eyes dropped closed and he gave a throaty, affirmative groan.

Dom darted in for another taste of Billy’s beestung lips, then started plucking open the rest of the buttons he’d held back on in the kitchen, watching as the dark fabric parted to pale skin and lovely chest hair, everything he’d imagined in class earlier, not too much or too little. Billy’s hands roamed up and down over Dom’s chest, leaving only to pull his arms free of the sleeves. Dom drew his own hands up those surprisingly large biceps and shoulders, their breath mingling as he stole another kiss and had a startling moment of clarity that this was really happening, he had Billy’s body under his hands and his taste on his lips.

Billy was a little thing under his clothes, every bit compact and stronger than he had any right to be, pushing Dom back down flat on the bed. his neat little fingers dove for the button fly of Dom’s jeans, tugging them open one at a time. Dom leaned up on his elbows to watch Billy discover him with hooded eyes.

“Figures you’d go commando, Dominic, I should have known,” Billy snickered, the smile leaving his face as Dom’s cock came into view. He stared hungrily at it, tugging Dom’s jeans down to his thighs as he inhaled, nostrils flaring at the scent of him.

“Well, if I knew we were going to have a little romp, I would have gone shopping special for an Argyll thong. But I wasn’t getting my hopes up,” Dom said cheekily.

Billy arched his eyebrows at him and dropped down onto an elbow by Dom’s hip, his hand smoothing all around Dom’s cock, curiously brushing through the neatly trimmed hair before sliding his whole warm hand onto the length of the shaft, up to circle the head and down to palm and lift Dom’s balls.

Dom felt himself pulse at how eager Billy was to just dive right into this, and a bead of fluid welled up at the slit, the head red and his foreskin tight below it. But when Billy thumbed the moisture away and then brought it to his mouth to taste with no hesitation whatsoever, Dom couldn’t help but clench his teeth and moan.

Billy pulled off his glasses and darted a dark look up at him as he held them out for Dom to set aside on the table. Without any further encouragement he leaned down and curled his pointy little tongue down around Dom’s cock, searching for more of that taste.

“Ngh,” Dom dropped one hand down to comb his fingers though Billy’s hair while he watched Billy lick him up and down, curl a hand round his length and take the head between his petal soft lips and suck. He plunged down on him, too far, gagging himself, the first sign in any of this that Billy might be inexperienced. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried again.

Dom gasped at the feeling, but tugged lightly on Billy’s hair, “You don’t have to, man, it’s good enough with your… your mouth on me,” he breathed, “It’s good.”

Billy glanced up, pressing the flat of his tongue on the head and letting his hand move at the base, his lips closing around him to apply a little suction.

“Yeah, Bills. Just like that,” Dom rumbled, consciously stilling his hips. “Feels fucking fantastic.”

Billy alternately tongued and sucked for some minutes before pulling back and nibbling with his lips back down Dom’s length to his balls, burying his nose and mouthing the soft skin.

Dom hung his head back and moaned, feeling Billy’s tongue curling around and lifting each ball, his hot breath pooling around them. He wriggled and tried to push his jeans farther off, wanting to free his legs so he could spread them wide.

Billy took the hint and sat up, tugging them the rest of the way off. When Dom was naked, he elbowed his way backward onto the pillows and let his knees fall apart, reaching down to give his prick a lazy tug.

“You too,” Dom gestured to Billy’s jeans, “Let me see you.”

“Fuck, Dom,” Billy stared at his hand, watching him wank, looking thoroughly flushed with red cheeks and down his chest, beginning to sweat. He quickly undid and whipped off his belt without taking his eyes away. He pushed out of his jeans and boxers, dropping them off the side of the bed before taking hold of himself and squeezing.

“Come up here,” Dom invited, moving over to give Billy some space, still pulling on his cock as Billy kneed up the bed to lie next to him. Side by side, they watched each other touch themselves, taking mental notes, in Dom’s case. Billy liked a tighter grip on himself and kept most of the pressure just under the head, while Dom preferred a lighter, fuller stroke.

After a fair amount of teasing, Dom let go of himself, rolled over and straddled Billy with a mischievous grin, “My turn.”

He caught a little flicker of fear on Billy’s face as he let go of his prick and dropped his hands to Dom’s thighs. Dom braced on all fours and dropped down to kiss him, slow and languid, pulling back to see unbelievably green eyes glossy and dark. “M’not gonna roger you, Bills, but just let me…” he grinned, dropping his voice to a low purr, “Let me drive you a bit crazy, yeah?”

“Too late for that.”

Dom kissed his mouth again, tasting himself there, then on the chin and down his neck, laying a sharp nip on the point of a collarbone. He trailed his tongue down between pectorals and under, along the line of the muscle, teasing up into a spiral until he reached a hardened nipple and sucked it into his mouth, loving the gasp that fell from Billy’s mouth. He teased the nub until Billy wriggled, torn between pushing into the assault of tongue and shrinking away from teeth, then he moved to the other and gave it the same treatment.

Leaving off, he kissed and tongued down Billy’s belly, cataloguing how while Billy wasn’t exactly toned, his stomach was flat and reasonably firm, the light covering of gingery hair a soft, sexy addition that just fit perfectly. Billy wore thirty well, that was for sure, no awkward angles or underdeveloped bits, he was all masculinity in a perfect little package, and the fact that he knew exactly what he wanted didn’t go unnoticed either. As Dom sucked at the skin just above Billy’s navel, he felt a hand drop to his head and urge him lower.

Dom gave a gravelly chuckle, arching a brow at Billy’s completely lust addled face. “Impatient little git.”

“Oh, suck my cock, Dominic,” Billy spat, grinning at the joke and added, “Please.”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Dom smiled wickedly, and ran the flat of his wide tongue over the full musky length that throbbed on Billy’s stomach. Billy let out a surprised noise, and Dom slurped him into his mouth.

He went for a slow, easy, pulsing suck, swirling his tongue round the head of Billy’s cock each time, gently holding Billy’s hips but allowing him to pump a bit. He was fairly sure Billy had no idea he was doing it, the way he was moaning and writhing, his head turning from side to side, his eyes closed and mouth open and gasping. It was funny to think he never had this done to him before, and yet the thought did wonders for Dom’s ego. He knew he was good at this, he’d been told as much by plenty of guys, and he could tell he was pushing Billy headlong into oblivion. Saliva was thick in his mouth with Billy’s taste, and he swallowed, watching the way the movement of his mouth made Billy shudder all over. He laughed through his nose, relaxed his throat and dove, taking Billy all the way down until his nose pressed into Billy’s damp pubes. He could only manage this for a second or two, but it had Billy shouting and grabbing Dom by the ears. Feeling Billy’s balls tighten up beneath his chin, Dom sat up, straddled Billy’s thighs and took him in his hand, stroking him off tight and fast.

Billy’s hand came down and joined with his own, guiding the rhythm and course with desperate intent until with a high-pitched sob he came, thick and white shooting up from his cock to fall on his clenching stomach muscles, then sluggishly pumping three, four more times over their combined knuckles.

“Yeah, Bills, fucking gorgeous,” Dom growled, leaving Billy to hold himself while he knelt over him and thrust hard into his own fist, panting and reaching down with his other hand to grab his balls, pressing hard behind them with the tips of his fingers. Five or six good strokes and he grunted release from deep in his chest, come reaching as far as Billy’s throat as he watched it fall and get caught in the hair.

When it was over, he dropped to hold his weight on his mostly clean hand, letting the other press and rub their combined come into Billy’s skin, before he dipped down to taste the salt and musk of it together over a nipple. Billy groaned between panting breaths, palming the back of his head and pulling him up to search out the taste in Dom’s mouth.

They broke apart and Dom finally rolled off to sprawl next to him on the little bed, blissed out.

After dozing for a bit, Dom hitched up on an elbow. Billy was awake, still lying where he had been and studying the stained ceiling, come drying on his stomach. Pushing himself up, Dom climbed over him, pausing to drop a kiss on Billy’s cheek and whispered, “Don’t get up.”

He strode naked into the bathroom, turning on the water to warm while he searched the cupboard for a washcloth, but finding only a few hand towels. Wetting one, he cleaned himself off and rinsed the cloth again before coming back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress, wiping the mess from Billy’s skin while he lay there looking back at Dom.

“I didn’t think it would be with you,” Billy said, and if it weren’t for his soft, almost shameful tone and the fact that he lay there and allowed himself to be mopped up, Dom might have been a little insulted. But he had already seen the self-doubt and regret building in Billy’s face, he’d been here before with more than a few people.

“I know,” he answered, tossing the towel towards the hamper and stroking his hand down one of Billy’s intriguing arms, “But it was nice, right?”

Billy’s eyes searched over his face before dropping away and looking to the fading light from the window, a half smile curling his mouth as he whispered, like a secret, “Aye, I guess it was.”

Dom smiled, wanting to stretch out again, wanting to talk and kiss and explore this, but knowing he couldn’t, wouldn’t be allowed. With a sigh, he plucked his jeans from the floor, gesturing to the time on the alarm clock, “You have to go to work soon.”

“Shite,” Billy sighed, sitting up and openly staring as he stepped back into his jeans and buttoned up the fly, his face unreadable. Dom paused, waiting to see if Billy would say something. He could imagine plenty of things Billy would say: that this shouldn’t have happened, that it didn’t mean anything, or maybe they shouldn’t keep studying together at all if this is what it came to.

But all Billy did was clear his throat and mutter, “I ought to shower,” before he stood and left the room, the sound of the water starting to beat down on fiberglass leaving Dom alone.

Dom sighed, searching the carpet for his shirt before he remembered Billy had pulled it off of him in the kitchen. Billy’s bedroom was fairly stark, only furnished with the bed, pushed against one wall to make a little more of the small space between it and the closet. There was one end table, clustered with a reading lamp, clock radio and a couple of art books, and little else in the room besides a small space heater. The bed itself wasn’t more than a full mattress with no boxspring, simply propped up on plywood and cinderblocks to keep it off the cold floor. He shivered in the drafty air, now that the fire of all this was leaving his skin.

He went to retrieve his own shirt and pulled it on, hearing the telltale sound of Billy blocking out the water, imagining him lifting his arms to push back wet hair, those surprising biceps bunching up. He never would have thought that the moments after living out a fantasy lay with someone he was wild about would still leave him confused and pining like a blouse. He found his shoes and sat on the sofa, mopping his face with his hands, the heady scent of Billy still on his fingers sparking his nerves all over again.

Had it been a mistake? Billy had been clear, it _didn’t mean anything_. Dom knew how that worked, that had been his modus operandi for pretty much all of his time at university, since none of the guys he crushed on returned his sentiments. Everyone got off and remained mates, and it didn’t mean anything.

But on Dom’s end, it did.

Billy was out of the shower and back in the bedroom within minutes, eventually appearing in Morton’s black slacks and white shirt with that velcro bow tie in his fingers, narrow and clean, that had skated over Dom’s balls and the insides of his thighs not a few minutes before…

They moved awkwardly around each other, Dom zipping his coat and shouldering his bag as Billy shrugged into his blazer, pocketing his phone and locking up as they left. They didn’t speak as Dom navigated across the river and through the city streets to the steakhouse and pulled into the curb.

Billy pushed the car door open and turned to him, the way he always did to thank him for the ride, their eyes meeting for the first time since they were in a bed together, naked and writhing. All the moisture in the air crystallized between them as the temperature dropped with the sun, freezing the moment like a photograph of a thousand things left unsaid.

And then Billy was gone, the car door slamming behind him.


	13. Chapter 13

Billy stirred sugar into the small coffee he’d scrounged up some change for at the Dunkin’ Donuts and swallowed half in one gulp, pausing to flip over the classified section of a newspaper that had been left beside the swizzle sticks and creamers outside the walk-up service window. None of the used cars in it even approached the few hundred dollars he’d paid for the old Pulsar two years ago, and he doubted he could come up with that much at this point. He’d have to save up for a year to be able to get a reliable vehicle, and by then he planned to be out of Boston entirely, and hopefully back home. He shook his head and dropped the paper, looking up across the square to see Dominic already making his way up Mass Ave towards him.

It had been a week since what had happened. Billy had come up with a feeble excuse not to study this past Thursday, which Dom hadn’t bought for a minute but took like he’d been expecting it. He showed to drive Billy to work with impeccable timing, not so early that Billy might still have to shower, or might be just stepping out of it and still needing to get dressed, but right when he ought to be ready to walk out the door. And here he was, heading towards him outside the Holyoke like he knew Billy’s schedule as well as his own. Observant little shit.

He tried to come up with something else within the next ninety seconds, a reason not to spend the next three hours in Dom’s presence, and came up woefully empty.

“Hi,” Dom greeted uncertainly, eyeballing the tiny paper cup in his hand and nodding back at the counter, “Sure you don’t want a bigger one?”

“No,” Billy shook his head quickly, finishing the last swallow and pitching the cup toward the rubbish bin. He opened his mouth to say he wanted to go to the library, but Dom beat him to the bunch.

“Hey, I think I left one of my notebooks at your house. Last…um, last Monday. I haven’t been able to find it,” he said, one of his hands scrubbing at the back of his hair.

Billy blinked. The fact that Dom had gone a week without a class notebook and had as many chances to pick it up when driving him to work struck him as ludicrous, a reason to get them both alone there again, but taking in Dom’s wide-eyed, earnest expression and the hesitant mention of last time, when they’d left off studying and spent the afternoon naked in his bed, his ability to fire back fizzled. “Okay.”

“Let’s take my car, yeah? It’s too cold,” Dom blew on his fingers in their cut off gloves, and Billy’s head took him back to having them working the buttons of his own shirt free, one by one. He nodded, striking out toward the student carpark.

Billy absolutely hated to admit it, but he’d spent the last week hardly able to concentrate for as often as flashes of that afternoon kept shoving themselves to the forefront. Far from that brief and relatively chaste kiss on his sofa, which he could forcibly evict from his head by concentrating on work, now when he was in the middle of grading papers on Greco-Roman sculptures or trying to fine tune his proposal, he’d get a sense memory of Dom’s tongue twisting with his own, of the surprising gentleness of his touch, the way his abs bunched up as he pumped into his own fist, way he smelled and tasted. It was powerfully, persistently distracting.

So much so that he didn’t even realize they were heading towards the river as if on the way to Morton’s already, and not to his own house. “Dom, you’re heading to my work.”

Dom glanced over at him, angel-faced, “Oh, right.”

But instead of turning right at the next street, he continued down along Broadway and took a left on Prospect. “Where are you going?” Billy argued. “You need to turn around!”

“Relax, Bills,” Dom murmured, his voice that low, sexy purr he’d used before, when he was promising to do things that would drive Billy crazy.

“I thought you said you left a notebook at my place,” Billy spluttered, his hand gripping the handle on the car door as if unconsciously considering jumping out.

Dom sent a glinting gaze at him as he drove. “I lied.”

“So you’re kidnapping me now?” The words came up like vomit as Billy’s heart began to hammer, “After last time you’ve just decided you can do whatever you like, is that it?”

Dom’s eyes flickered back at him as he kept on driving, unreadable, and he stayed maddeningly silent until he’d pulled into the old factory district of Kendall Park, which was now a revamped area of expensive lofts and high-end shopping.

Easing into a numbered space in the parking garage under one of the renovated factories, Dom turned the car off and got out, slinging his bag over his shoulder and waiting for Billy to do the same. Exhaling through his teeth, Billy still felt wired and irritated that Dom would trick him, bringing him here where he and his arsehole friends obviously lived. He pushed the door open and hauled his rucksack and briefcase out of the back seat, glaring over the roof of the Prius. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“I have asked, about a half a dozen times. I knew you’d never voluntarily come,” Dom fired back, and his face was not the smug, wicked, _got one over on you_ expression Billy expected, but a resigned sort of stubbornness instead. “Come on.”

Billy followed him into a lift, Dom punching the button for the top floor. Billy glanced up at him as the doors closed, finding Dom’s eyes on him again, crawling over his body the way they had in his kitchen before everything had gone all to hell.

He stared at his shoes until the lift smoothly came to a stop and spilled them into a long hallway, following Dom to the last door and waiting as he fumbled with his keys.

The door opened to a single massive rectangular room. An open kitchen with a long island and shining stainless steel appliances lay to the left, and on the right a massive ten seat dining room table that held a jumble of backpacks, sleek new laptops and textbooks. The walls on either side of the room were painted a burnished copper color, the wood accents and the hardwood floors stained dark. The entire far wall was floor-to-ceiling windows at least twenty five feet high, overlooking the Boston skyline to the east. There was a pool table and a pinball machine to one side, and on the other, a folding screen and behind it a pottery wheel that Billy recognized from Dom’s photographs. Centered in front of the massive windows was an enormous flat screen television, which was tuned to a basketball game. On the two long leather sofas in front of it was Elijah, with two of his friends that Billy recognized from campus but whose names he didn’t know.

“Sblomie,” Elijah called. “Come watch with us, it’s Notre Dame and Baylor.”

“Nah, mate,” Dom said, pulling open the fridge to grab four bottles of Newcastle, cradling the cold bottles awkwardly against his front, “All work and no play, you know.”

“Billy, don’t you like basketball?” Elijah asked with a wide grin. His friends sniggered.

“No,” Billy muttered quietly, feeling awkward at being addressed by someone outside of a classroom who had only ever spoken to him with upper class condescension.

“Billy likes football, like any Scot should, eh?” Dom injected, cutting Elijah’s avenue off. “My guess is he’s a Rangers or a Celtic man. That’s _Celtic_ , by the way, not _Seltic_ , like your idiot Yank team pronounces it, right Bills?”

“Sure,” Billy mumbled, turning his back to the others and his body toward the retreat of the door. “Dom, maybe we should just go to my place, or—”

“Relax Bills, I haven’t even shown you my etchings yet,” Dom smiled, putting a warm hand on his shoulder to point him toward the spiral staircase leading to an upper floor that overhung the kitchen and dining area. He leaned close to whisper, “They won’t bother us, I promise.”

Billy sighed uncomfortably, heading up the stairs with Dom behind, then letting him go ahead along the loft railing with wolf whistles following them to the third door.

Dom tugged off his gloves and peeled off his coat as Billy took in the room. It was nearly large enough to fit Billy’s entire flat inside it. Most of it was occupied by the king-sized bed that sat on a platform of drawers, its covers scrunched to one side and pillows scattered. On one wall was a shelf full of books and two desks. One wasn’t used as a desk, but held a large, complex stereo system and several piles of CDs, as well as an expensive dock for an MP3 player. The other held a massive computer display and a digital tablet, wires snaking out from the back to be plugged into Dom’s laptop. A closet stood open with hanging shirts and the odd suit, with a pile of dirty laundry at its base beside a hamper.

Against the other wall was a large drafting table, spread with rolls of blueprint paper, drafting pencils, and sets of expensive art markers cluttered along the top. On a filing cabinet to the side was an unfinished foamboard model of a building, an exacto knife and extra blades in a case, empty glue bottles, packets of tiny fake trees and grass colored flocking waiting to be used, and whole pieces of foamboard propped against the wall. Beside that was a large sketchpad on an easel, open to drawings of what looked like beetles and birds of various types.

Dropping his bag and briefcase on the corner of Dom’s bed, Billy tentatively approached the sketchpad and flipped back a page, finding a sketch of a nude man from the back, posed prone, hands pressed to the glass of a huge window with a cityscape outside, one knee cocked just enough to tilt the hips, the dimpling of the buttock and musculature of the back shaded with a loose, crosshatched grace in marker. It was as well-executed as it was provocative. Flipping back another page, and another, gave him similar variations of the same nude in pencil and charcoal.

“You did this?” he asked, surprised at this side of Dominic he’d never seen.

Dom looked up from the stack of CDs he was perusing, “Yeah. That’s for Blanchett’s class.”

Billy lightly touched the foamboard building and found that the roof lifted off, showing the insides.

“That one’s for my Design final. Bit of a bitch, really.”

“It’s really good.”

“Nah, it’s not. Not structurally, anyway,” Dom chuckled, coming around and unrolling the blueprints to show him. “I get these visual ideas, you know, and I can’t… I don’t want deviate from them. It looks fucking amazing in foamboard, right? But all Noble can say is that my angles are off, my equations are all wrong, the thing would collapse if anyone tried to build it for real. Even my dad says so. But you know me, stubborn as hell,” he grinned. “I’ll get points off, but I don’t really care, to be honest. It’s my dad who wanted me to major in this anyway, not me. I’d rather just draw. That’s Orlando’s arse you’re ogling, by the way,” he pointed to the nude as he wandered back to the stereo.

Billy breathed a laugh, shrugging out of his blazer as he glanced over a frame-up on the wall above of a fraternity paddle, shirt and some text in violet and gold on the wall. Music erupted from the MP3 player, too loudly, jolting Billy back to the face the room. “Sorry!” Dom yelled above it, cutting the volume down to low.

Shrugging off the apology, Billy’s eye went to the print above the headboard of the huge bed.

  


  


“I’ll bet you know the painter, title, and the year on that one,” Dom challenged, seeing Billy looking at it. “And probably which museum has it as well.”

Billy suddenly found himself smiling, “Toulouse-Lautrec, _The Bed_. That was, erm… eighteen ninety-two or three, I think. Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Some people debate on whether they’re two women, two men, your standard hetero couple, or whether they’re lovers at all. Although based on the rest of the series and Henri’s history, they’re probably both prostitutes.”

Dominic’s returning smile was pleased and impressed, “Interpret as you will.”

Billy looked back at the piece, “Aye. It’s one of his better works, in my opinion. Everyone knows his poster art, but it’s his paintings that really show his skill, I think. Even from when he was a boy, he could paint that well. Look at the use of color, how warm and soft it is, even in the greens and blues. Look how the top of the headboard is just suggested, but it’s still got so much depth. Half the time he never even gessoed his canvases, did you know that? ‘ _Only the figure exists,_ ’ is what he once wrote to a friend. ‘ _The landscape is, and should be, only an accessory’._ ”

“He said a lot of things,” Dom intoned, setting a cracked beer on the table near Billy and climbing up on the bed himself, crossing his arms above his head against his pillows with the print above him.

“Did he?” Billy looked at him sidelong, tugging the desk chair out and sitting on it backwards, leaning his arms across the back. “What else did he say?”

“All kinds of things. Bohemian hippy green fairy sorts of things. Let me see if I remember right,” Dom lowered his lashes, thinking, “Things like ‘ _I have tried to do what is true and not ideal_ ’, and ‘ _Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly that you feel you could die from it’_.”

Taken aback, Billy stared at Dom, lying there spouting poetry, quotes Billy himself didn’t know but wouldn’t be far off base for old Toulouse. Billy had never in his whole life been desired, but suddenly, he was back in his kitchen with Dom’s eyes raking over him, then his hands and his mouth doing the same, telling him he looked _really fucking good_ , overwhelming him with need for more of that, the desire to be desired.

Dom opened his eyes, looking back at him from where he sprawled languidly like he was inviting Billy to climb right on. Billy shook his head, stumbling off the chair for his briefcase, and pulling out a stack of grading to be done. Toulouse was wrong. The desire to be desired wasn’t love, certainly not from or for someone like Dominic Monaghan.

He heard Dom exhale as he settled back in the desk chair, watching him get up in his peripheral vision and dig out some work from his own bag. The MP3 player cycled through several songs, some Billy had never heard as well as a few old classics he knew well as he graded through one stack of assignments and started on another. Dom remained against the pillows with a textbook open on his belly and another beside him, writing out essay questions in a bluebook. He tapped the eraser of his pencil to the beat, sometimes mouthing the words to songs, often stopping to stretch his arms above him and yawn as the time went by.

About an hour and a half after they started, the door burst open, with Orlando’s face bright and dazzling grin wide, but then it fell to almost disappointed as he leaned in the threshold and crossed his arms as he looked at them. He still wore a coat over sweaty gym clothes.

“No sock on the doorknob?” he queried loudly, and Elijah’s high giggle exploded from below, ringing through the whole flat.

“Does it look like it?” Dom asked, though his grin hitched crookedly to one side. “We’re a bit busy here, mate. Studying.”

“Uh-huh,” Orlando’s eyebrows hopped, gaze flicking from Dom to Billy and back. “Studying. Billy,” he nodded by way of greeting. “Did you sort out your car?”

“Ah,” Billy mumbled, “I had a bloke tow it away.”

“Did you get another, or…?” he glanced at Dom again briefly.

“No, I…” Billy scrubbed at his hair, entirely uncomfortable with this strange turnabout of Dom’s mates actually being nice to him. “Once I finish my Doctorate I won’t be here any longer so… I guess I’ll just make do.”

Orlando nodded at that, still darting looks between the pair of them before Dom arched his eyebrows pointedly. “Right, well,” he lingered dumbly, “I’ll just…” and he left, sending Dom a not very subtle wink and wicked grin before he closed the door.

“Christ, Dom,” Billy huffed, feeling his face burning. He took off his glasses to rub the heat off his face.

“What?” Dom retorted, his own voice nearly a whisper. “I didn’t… they don’t know anything.”

“Sure they don’t. Sock on the doorknob?” Billy stood, feeling restless as he fussed with his things, searching for something imaginary in the pockets of his bag.

A silly grin flashed across Dom’s face unbidden. “It’s nothing. It’s when you live in the dorms with a roommate and you—”

“I know what it bloody means,” Billy cut him off. His eyes crawled the room, wanting to look anywhere but at Dominic, on his bed, and firmly tried to ignore the idea that Dom’s arsehole friends already suspected they were up here fucking, and what a hilarious joke that must be. Especially since it had actually happened, which his damned brain insisted on reminding him constantly.

He found the frat insignia on the wall again and moved closer to squint so he could read the text, which pronounced it the Sigma Alpha Epsilon creed.

  
_"The True Gentleman"_  


  
_The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds  
from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and  
whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does  
not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the  
obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his  
inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if  
necessity compels him to humble another; who does not  
flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own  
possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness  
but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows  
his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others  
rather than his own; and who appears well in any company,  
a man with whome honor is sacred and virtue safe._  


  
_-John Walter Wayland (Virginia 1899)_  


  
Billy swallowed, the heaviness of those words ringing in his head. Dom had been none of those things. He and his friends had been nearly the polar opposite of what this spoke. And somehow, it wasn’t a surprise. Billy had never been inclined to join a frat, not even back at Glasgow University. None of them ever lived up to what they claimed to be. It was a position of status for kids who came from money, along with the ability to have enormous parties and do really stupid shit under a guise of organized brotherhood, not become this archaic ideal of a virtuous man. The idea that this was framed up with it fancy matting job, probably for quite a lot of money seemed ridiculous considering it was in Dominic Monaghan’s personal bedroom.

“I’m going to go,” he said abruptly, pushing his things back into his briefcase swiftly, hoisting his rucksack onto his back and grabbing his jacket. He wanted to get out of here before anything else happened.

“Okay. I’ll drive you,” Dom struggled out from under his books and off the bed.

“No, I’ll just take the bus.”

“But I’ve got to take you to—”

“No, Dom,” Billy’s voice went fierce and a little wild as his hand grabbed for the bedroom doorknob and Dom’s landed atop it to slow him down. The nearness of him, the warmth of his skin and the scant inch of height Dom had on him seemed to cage him in. He felt breathless as he met Dom’s eyes and muttered, “I need to go.”

Dom looked like he would argue, like he would keep his hand there and ask Billy all the questions behind that deep crystalline blue of his gaze, questions that would bring a lot of shit to the surface and that he didn’t want to have to answer.

But in a moment Dom’s hand left his, his expression closing as he stepped back to let him pull open the door and hurry down the stairs.

“Billy! You’re not leaving, are you?” Elijah’s voice rang out after him, with laughter following behind as he slammed the door of the loft and found the stairs down to the street.

It wasn’t until he was on a bus heading back toward Cambridge that he started arguing with himself with the words of that creed running through his head. No man was all of those ridiculously perfect things. Certainly not Dom. Not Billy himself. Not even Toulouse-Lautrec, who Dom held in high enough regard to have his work be the first thing he’d see every morning. Dom’s quote from him swam back into his head, not the one about desire, but the one about truth.


	14. Chapter 14

Dom woke to the dull rhythmic cadence of the kick-wheel from downstairs. He stretched, having a bit of a scratch beneath the covers and palming himself. His eyes flicked up at the print above his headboard, swimming in the familiar colors, two people in a bed, upside down from this vantage point. Billy’s descriptions of it from the other day came back to him, the way his voice completely departed from the clipped hesitancy when he spoke about something he clearly loved.

He could still remember the smell of Billy, clean and musky and sort of spicy from his aftershave, and the way the hair on his chest was not nearly as rough as he’d thought it might be, but rather soft and crisp against his tongue…

Letting go of his cock with an exhale, he brought his hands back up above his head and ignored the insistence of his morning erection to continue on with that nice _tha-thump_ tempo being set downstairs. He rolled out of bed and tugged on some loose flannels, quietly making his way to the bathroom to pee and splash his face with cool water.

Tuesdays were a late morning for all of them with no class until afternoon, and at Elijah’s half-open door he paused, taking in the sight of him spread-eagled on his belly across his bed, one foot hanging off the mattress and cord of his earbuds just shy of strangling him. Lij regularly fell asleep with them on, running his iPod’s battery all the way down most every night.

Orlando, on the other hand, had already been up for hours, going for his usual sunrise run and then coming home to work on the wheel. Dom lingered at the top of the stairs, watching him keep the speed and his hands smooth and steady—one of the few times Orli’s energy was contained and focused was when he was working the clay. Studying the lighting of the scene between the square of his fingers, he decided it was too late in the morning to get the camera and give this shot another go. He’d taken it dozens of times, occasionally even sat at the top of the stairs with his sketchbook, trying to capture the exact mood in the moment. Blanchett once told him dozens of artists worked this way, making the same piece over and over again. His father called it the sort of obsessive perfectionism inherent in a good architect and told him he ought to focus on something useful.

Heading downstairs, he checked out the small collection of clay offerings on the board this morning as Orlando’s mud-slick hands sculpted another. He’d long exhausted his repertoire of _Ghost_ innuendos after a couple of years of this life, and so made his way to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of orange juice. Downing half the glass, he perused the fridge and pulled out the egg carton with cheese, green onions and some sausages, setting up and cracking several eggs in a bowl to make omelets.

By the time they were sizzling in the pan, Orli’d stopped the wheel spinning, examining the little pots he’d made, setting some on the drying rack and discarding one or two in the bucket of clay and water. He came into the kitchen to wash up.

It had become something of a ritual, this, the pottery clay and the Tuesday morning fry-up between he and Orli, who sat at the island bar as Dom slid a plate of food across to him, standing on the opposite side to eat his own. This was when they talked about nothing, and everything.

“So,” Orli started, shoveling egg in his mouth and flicking chestnut eyes up at him, “Billy, eh?”

“What about him?” Dom tried for nonchalance.

“I just noticed you haven’t been taking him to work since…”

 _…since the day came over_ , was how that sentence finished, along with _since he left in a big damn hurry_ and _since the tension between them had hit unbearable to a point where they’d gone right back to avoiding each other entirely_. Dom went for a detached shrug, “I guess he’s taking the subway.”

Orli chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “You suck at hiding it, mate.”

Dom rolled his eyes, spearing a bit of sausage.

“You do.”

“Or Elijah told you.”

“He didn’t,” Orli shook his head, then amended, “Well, yeah okay, he did, but I had you pegged ages before he figured it out.”

Dom shook his head with a disbelieving laugh, “Whatever.”

“Hey,” Orli set down his fork and ruffled Dom’s hair across the countertop, “I know that look you get. I’ve seen you point it at dozens of boys since it was me. And it’s been pretty rare when it goes on this long. And when you don’t tell us all about it.”

Dom sighed, looking across the flat, out the big windows, anywhere but back at Orli.

“It's just weird. He’s not your type.”

“How do you know what my type is?” Dom retorted.

“From your history, mate? Your type is cute, twinky, hunky, pretty, and straight nine times out of ten.” Orlando ducked as Dom threw a piece of onion at him. 

It was true though, all the guys Dom generally tended to go for in the last few years—including Orli himself, Elijah, Garrett, even Jessie Barnes to name a few—all fell into a certain category that Billy just wasn’t even close to. 

“Plus he’s old, he’s like ten years older than us.”

“He is not!” Dom blurted, and Orli’s grin went wide.

“He’s balding!”

“I don’t care!” Dom exclaimed, laughing as he pushed his empty plate away and leaned on his elbows on the worktop. Orlando’s eyes blazed through him, asking for more. Dom shrugged, “He’s different, that’s all. He’s not about looks because he’s looking elsewhere, you know? Like he gets in class when it’s obvious the piece he’s talking about is a favorite of his. He knows exactly what he’s working toward, where he wants his life to go. Like he’s on this big, bold straight line to get there.”

“So the thing that does it for you is that he’s a geeky self-absorbed worm?” Orlando teased.

“Doesn’t make him a worm. It’s passion. He’s got a plan in his head,” Dom argued, “Not like me. Mine’s just poking out in all directions. Little squiggly lines every which way.”

“Still doesn’t explain it,” Orli finished his own plate, folding his own arms on the counter and studying him with a smile, “Unless you’ve had this thing forever, and your little study dates and a long dry spell have irrevocably tweaked your judgement.”

“No,” Dom giggled half-heartedly, “Not forever. Not ‘til the study thing. It’s hard to spend that much time with a bloke and not learn things about him you didn’t know before, yeah? And anyway, he’s not bad looking. Especially when you get him out of those clothes.”

Orli’s face was nearly a burst of sunshine, “You got his kit off!?”

Dom grinned down at their empty plates, “Maybe.”

“Voluntarily?”

“Yeah,” Dom flinched guiltily. “I may have influenced him a little bit.”

“You made him pose for you, didn’t you,” Orlando swatted at his head. “You dog. It’s not gonna be my arse anymore.”

“No, I still like your arse, you’re not off the hook yet.”

“Seriously, what happened?” Orli pried.

“Ah… we were at his, and I kissed him again,” Dom scrubbed at his hair with a naughty grin, “And he sort of went a little berserk. In a really sexy way.”

Orli laughed incredulously, even as Dom looked at his friend more seriously, “I don’t know what’s going on with him, actually. I’ve no fucking idea what I’m doing anymore.”

Orli furrowed his brow in question, and Dom tried to elaborate, waving his hand vaguely, “One minute we’re having a friendly conversation and the next, he hates me. I kiss him, and I swear he’s into it, and then he avoids me for a week. And now this,” he shook his head. “I don’t have a clue what I’ve done wrong now.”

“Well, you drove him to work after his car bites the dust, and then shit escalates, and then you bring him over here, where me and Lij are arseholes because that’s what we do, and he’s avoiding you again?” Orli worked out with a shrug of his own. “I know what this is.”

Dom looked back up at him hopefully, and Orli grinned, “He’s all conflicted, mate. You’re confusing the fuck out of him.”

“That’s great. He’s confusing the fuck out of me,” Dom replied. “So what do I do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to get acquainted with his perky little arse,” Dom joked, then rubbed his stubbly jaw as he murmured the truth. “I want him to like me.”

“Then make him,” Orli responded. When Dom waited for more explanation on how one goes about that, he smiled broadly, “Romance him, you idiot.”

“I thought I had been,” Dom shook his head.

“Christ, you’re thick as shit sometimes,” Orli laughed, his eyes crinkling with his smile. “A bit of snogging and even a casual roll doesn’t mean you’re dating, especially when it’s the girl you’ve teased for having glasses and pigtails in secondary school. They want to know you’re not really the prick you were before.”

“Maybe I still am, though, just not to him,” Dom ventured.

Orli reached across and ruffled Dom’s messy hair, “So quit being a douche and dial the charm up to eleven, Romeo.”

 

Billy glanced about before he ducked into 1369 Coffeehouse, scanning heads in the dining room and finding Prof Mort’s shaggy mop among them. He smiled and waved, making his way through the line to grab a coffee before weaving through to the corner table.

“’S different,” he said as he pulled out the opposite chair and sat. Technically this wasn’t even an advising session, it was more a last check in and chat, so maybe it was appropriate.

Mort shrugged off the informal setting, looking in his element in a coffeehouse, even with the cowboy boots. “So you’ve turned everything in, then?”

“Yeah,” Billy poured through everything in his head again. “My other professors said they’d do what they can to get all the marks in on time. So… that’s that.”

“That’s that.”

“I’m mostly just doing your shite and studying for quals now,” Billy murmured in the quiet, “and fine-tuning.”

“Always,” Mort shook his head.

“What?”

“You know every time you switch a sentence around or change a verb tense and send it back to me, I have to reread that fucking thing. I could give your proposal myself, by heart.”

Billy grinned, glancing away. This was nice, actually, less like a meeting between a professor and student and more like mates in this setting.

“So, listen,” Viggo started, “Something came down the line that I wanted you to consider.” Billy eyed him, certain another massive delay was likely as he went on, “Informally, there’s nothing set in stone yet, but. Someone on the Commencement organization committee mentioned grad students getting up and saying a few things—”

“Fuck, Vig,” Billy laughed. It was always one more thing.

“Well, you know, like I said, you don’t have to,” Viggo said, tapping his thumb lightly against his coffee cup. “But there are only three people in the Art school’s grad program, and you’re the only one heading for a PhD. And the only one who will most likely have Cum Laud honors. Naturally you’re the department’s first choice for a speech.”

Billy raised his eyebrows, “So you want me to go be inspiring, tell all the twats in this class to work themselves to the bone and not have a life until they get the bloody degree that will at least give them half a chance of getting a foot in the door?”

“I’m saying you could tell them to follow their passions to their utmost, like you. You did a pretty fair job of it in class the other day. You even had Dom paying attention.”

Billy eyes darted back down to his coffee at that, feeling heat rise to his cheeks, stirring and stirring even though all the sugar must be dissolved. Dom had been paying him quite a lot of attention, in class and otherwise.

“Are you still meeting with him?” Viggo inquired, after his silence.

“Sometimes,” he sighed, “He’s, ehm… taken me to work a few times since my car gave out.”

Vig’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. Surprisingly, Billy’s mouth continued on without consulting his brain. “I don’t understand him at all.”

“How so?”

Billy just shook his head, eyes unfocused on some point out the window. “He’s been nothing but a shit to me for years, Vig. Two years of taking it from him. Sometimes he still is, when people are watching. But when we’re alone…” His voice did something funny and he paused to clear his throat, then paused some more as memories of bright eyes and skin broke in again, “I don’t know. I’m too old for this shite.”

Viggo took all that in with no change in expression, rubbing at his goatee. “But you are still working together?”

“You keep asking me that.”

The professor lifted his shoulders again, “I encouraged you to work together, mainly because it’s helped Dom’s focus enormously. But if you don’t want to, then don’t.”

Billy met Viggo’s eyes, waiting for more that didn’t come. “That’s it? I’ve spent all this time with him and now you’re saying I didn’t have to?”

“I never forced you. You’re both adults.”

“I don’t know about that,” Billy retorted, but then questioned himself on who was being more childish. The last week he’d sacrificed precious study time in order to get to the subway for work, knowing very well that Dom was probably knocking on his door to drive him there for at least the first few evenings and ignored phone calls. He remembered with crystalline clarity the look of confusion and, yes, the hurt on Dom’s face when he’d stormed out of his bedroom. He also remembered, with some shame, just how much he’d wanted to see if Dom would say or do something to make him keep that bedroom door closed. But he hadn’t. He’d stepped back and let him go.

He glanced back at Viggo only to find his penetrating eyes gazing steadily back, like a man who sees all and is surprised at nothing. He tried to scrub the pink off his face and gulped half his coffee to cover it, hoping for a change the subject and an out on this, deciding Viggo the mate was more difficult to deal with than Mort the professor. He only stayed maddeningly silent.

“Are you quite proud of yourself, then, playing matchmaker, or…?” Billy’s mouth blurted, again sidestepping his shrieking brain.

The bastard didn’t even seem surprised. Viggo rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands together before his chin, speaking slowly, quietly, “I asked two of my students to help each other out. Whatever happened after that was not my doing.”

Billy pushed his coffee cup back and forth, back and forth on the surface of the table, waiting for the searing embarrassment to go away. He certainly felt like a child now, caught red-handed and ashamed, and more.

Viggo’s quiet and yet profound next sentence made Billy jump. “Why are you so upset?”

“I’m not,” he lied immediately, shaking his head at how very obviously he was upset, and afraid, and unwilling to process what any of that meant. “I don’t have time for this, Vig. I have quals, the proposal, I have to finish…”

“Billy,” Viggo’s hand dropped to Billy’s forearm, a steady presence stopping his hand on the cup, like he was gentling a horse. “There is nothing wrong with wanting something in your life other than your degree. _Nothing_.”

Billy took a deep, nervous breath, expelling it shakily, and Viggo sat back, looking out the window to give Billy time to collect himself. 

“When I was only a little older than Dom, and still younger than you,” Viggo murmured, “I suddenly had a wife and this… amazing brand new baby in my arms. And I was completely terrified. Life doesn’t always go according to your master plan. You know that as well as anyone.”

Billy shook his head again, then followed it with a nod at his coffee cup. It didn’t. He had learned that early on when his parents had died, when he couldn’t get into the universities he’d wanted to attend, when Gran had died and he’d had to retake this entire last semester. Life was adamantly refusing to go along with his master plan. The fact that Dom was now woven into it just illustrated to Billy how much control he’d completely lost over his life.

“Dom’s a good kid,” Viggo eventually said. “He’s young, and he’s cocky and mouthy, I won’t deny that. Everyone’s an idiot when they’re his age. But his heart is good, and he has a lot of it. It’s rare when he settles his frenetic mind on one thing for a large amount of time.”

The idea that Dom had settled on him was ridiculous. And obvious, if Billy stopped ignoring it and really looked at it head-on. Billy shook his head and laughed a little. “So you think I should forget all the shite he’s given me and… and fuck the Harvard Doctorate and run off into the sunset with a… a… starving artist?”

“I won’t tell you to do anything,” Viggo replied, “Look, in a couple of weeks, your proposal will be over. Whether you realize it or not, you’re next deadline won’t even be solid for months. No one is expected to finish a dissertation in less than a year. If you want to, you can, but there’s no hurry.”

“I don’t want to be one of those sods who spends five years on it. I’ve been working for this for ages, Vig. I don’t want to turn forty and still be wondering where my career is.”

“If I know you, that will never happen. But there’s no harm in slowing down and taking a breath. Anyway,” Viggo finished his own coffee, “Think about the commencement speech? You’ll still have a few weeks after your proposal if you want to do it. It won’t interfere with anything if you do. And who knows, Dom might appreciate that you’re the one giving the words of wisdom at his graduation.”

He gathered his empty cup and newspaper, standing up, “That’s encouragement, by the way, not an order. On the speech and on… anything else you’re thinking about. You just said you didn’t have a life outside of your degree, Billy. So take a little time out to have one.”

Viggo palmed Billy’s shoulder in his big hand for a moment, then left him to try to reassemble himself and consider what he really wanted.

 

Thursday found Dom back in Lamont, Billy’s whereabouts predictably in Study Room Eight with piles of books and his laptop surrounding him. He nodded minutely at Dom’s greeting as he sat in the opposite chair, but gave him nothing else.

Dom pulled out a textbook and flipped to a random page, not remotely interested in studying. For several minutes he pretended to read, his knee waving back and forth under the table as he waited for Billy to take a breath and break his sightline from the laptop screen it was nailed to.

“Proposal is soon, then?” he finally asked, making Billy start just slightly at being addressed.

“Ehm, yeah. Next Wednesday,” he muttered.

“Good. That’s good,” Dom replied quickly. He tried to think back to when they’d last spoke, considering Orli’s advice, and trying to pinpoint whatever it had been that had set Billy off. “Er. I’m sorry about Orli. Busting in like he did the other day.”

Billy finally pulled his eyes from the screen and looked across the table, though his face remained unreadable. “He’s a prick,” Dom added, for good measure. “Thought he was being funny, I guess.”

Billy merely looked across, his pretty mouth just slightly open. His tongue flicked across as if in preparation for words, but then he just looked back to his laptop. 

Dom decided that was apology accepted, as odd was Billy was being. Orli’s voice came back to him, _Romance him, you idiot._ “Look, let’s go out, you and me.”

Billy let go a breath, still not looking up from his screen.

“Let’s have dinner, maybe see a movie or something,” Dom tried again.

“Right, and where will Orlando and Elijah be, then?” Billy suddenly fired back, “A few tables over, behind a potted plant with a camera? How much would they have to pay a waiter to spill soup in my lap, do you think?”

Dom sat back, as if the words had physically blown him against the chair, looking Billy over and shaking his head in disbelief. 

“What?” Billy asked, eyes narrowing.

Dom shook his head again, at a complete loss. “I wasn’t joking.”

Billy eyed him with the same solid distrust as he ever had, certain there was a twist.

“I just…” Dom sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You know, maybe we’ve had a few laughs at your expense. But not lately, I mean, I haven’t ragged on you, and I’ve told the pair of twats I live with to fuck off, which is about all the control I’ve got over them. You’ve sat here all semester and helped me get my shit together, even though you didn’t want to and you think I’m a right pain in the arse, and I want to take you out.”

Billy was still staring back at him, guarded as ever, but then something is his eyes flickered and he looked away, across the room at nothing in particular. Dom gave it one last try. He leaned back onto the table and tentatively lay the pads of his fingers over Billy‘s knuckles where they rested beside his laptop. “I don’t know how many ways I have to tell you that _I like you_ before you trust me, Bills,” he said softly. “I quit taking the piss a long time ago.”

Billy’s eyes finally dropped to the table to their hands touching on its surface. After what felt like an eternity, he slowly turned his hand over, letting Dom slide their fingers together. His whisper was terribly quiet behind a heavy exhale. “So, you want to take me out.” 

“I want to take you out,” Dom nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up as he clarified, “On a date.”

Billy gave a breathed laugh, his face softening as Dom’s fingertips drew lightly over his palm, “You’ve already had me in bed once, what’s the point of dating?”

Dom’s grin widened considerably, “Well, I was hoping to get you there again, may as well come clean.”

“Didn’t take much the first time,” Billy murmured back swiftly, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses, and his thumb closed over Dom’s knuckle, stroking lightly.

Dom exhaled through his nose and swallowed, resisting the idea of dragging Billy into some dusty, forgotten corner of the stacks, right here, right now. “I was, ehm. I was thinking, maybe I should earn it this time.”

Billy looked at their hands, then away across the room, expelling a breath of his own, “I have so much work to do,” he muttered. “My proposal…”

“Don’t do that,” Dom countered immediately, his fingers closing over Billy’s to squeeze, “Just for one night, Bills. The world won’t come crashing down if you have a little fun.”

Billy looked back for a long moment, his hand sliding away as he leaned back in his own chair, rounding his eyebrows, “What if I don’t put out on a first date?”

Heart absolutely swelling at Billy Boyd actually flirting with him, Dom bit his lip against his mad grin. He’d mainly been thinking an impromptu dinner tonight, but maybe this required a little more finessing. “Then I’d better get to planning a second and third, don’t you think? Saturday evening, Bills. Sixish. I’ll pick you up.” His pursed his lips, letting his eyes skate over Billy, “And wear a tie.” He stood, shoving his book back into his bag.

“Why a tie?” Billy asked.

He adjusted his bag’s strap across his chest and rounded the table, skirting a hand around Billy’s shoulder and leaning down to his ear to whisper, “Because ties drive me… a little crazy.” He lingered, breathing just close enough over Billy’s ear and neck to get that tiny gasp he wanted before he weaved through the tables of other students, pausing at the door to peek back and see if Billy was looking.

He was.


	15. Chapter 15

Dom strode up to the old brick Victorian, checking his tie and buttoning his jacket. The weather had finally granted the city a reprieve, sunny enough during the day to melt most of the remaining snow, but the evening was still crisply cold when the light fell. He gave a little shiver as he descended the sunken concrete steps and knocked.

A few moments ticked by before Billy threw open the door, his eyes tripping down Dom’s shiny silk tie and waistcoat under his jacket, looking distraught. "Shite. Dom, I’m not going to be dressed properly for wherever we’re going. I look like a four pound wino compared to you!"

He looked nothing of the sort, actually, wearing the denims Dom had liked from before with a light blue shirt, a quirky striped tie and a charcoal suit jacket he hadn’t seen. Still, Billy’s hands tugged at his clothes, backing away from the threshold toward his bedroom. "I’ll change to trousers. Change this awful tie too, Maggie gave it to me for a birthday and it doesn’t fucking go with anything—"

Dom shut the door and caught him by an arm, turning him back around to fix the tie he was attempting to shred. "I think you look fine."

Billy stared back doubtfully. "You’re just saying that. How do you pull off jeans with a jacket and tie like that, but when I try it, I just look like a complete arse?"

"Looks to me like you’re pulling it off," Dom reassured, turning him loose again. "You look like a beatnik art professor. Not too far off the map for you, really."

"Is it alright?" he asked, still concerned, "For wherever we’re going? Where _are_ we going?"

"It’s fine, Bills," Dom repeated, intent on keeping their destination a secret. "They’re not all that tight-arsed about what you wear anyway. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve probably been there before, so if they let the likes of us in once, they’ll do it again, eh? You look good." He deliberately let his eyes linger, taking Billy in and hoping those words resonated from the last time he’d said them.

Billy continued to fidget, shrugging against the somewhat snug fit in the shoulder of his jacket, tugging at his collar and the lay of the tie, scrubbing a hand up through his hair before wildly trying to flatten it back down again. Pocketing his own hands, Dom simply watched his discomfort with a wry smile. When Billy finally noticed, he blurted a nervous laugh. "This is weird, Dom," he said anxiously, "I just... don’t really know how to approach this."

Dom grinned, nodding in complete agreement. The two of them, going on a date of all things. It _was_ weird. He jingled his keys in his pocket, then pulled them out. Better get them going before Billy changed his mind entirely. "Should we—?"

"Aye, I suppose we should," Billy answered swiftly, grabbing for his own keys to lock up behind them.

They sat in silence as Dom drove, and even with the music turned low between them it felt similar to all the drives to Billy’s job; little in the way of conversation, with Billy staring out the passenger’s window and chewing at his thumbnail. As they came to the bridge, he turned sharply to Dom. "You’re not taking me to Morton’s are you?"

Dom did a double-take at him, being sure to look a bit wide-eyed and guilty until Billy’s expression tilted a little more toward mortifying horror. Then he grinned and said, "‘Course not." Billy exhaled with relief as he continued, "I figured we’d eat later." He glanced over doubtfully, "Unless, you hungry now? I can change the reservation..."

"No, no," Billy replied quickly, waving him off, "I mean, if you made one, don’t change it. ‘S a big hassle."

"Good. I didn’t make one," Dom flashed him another wide grin. A couple of weighted seconds passed as Dom drove, feeling Billy’s hard eyes trying to parse him out, tiring already of the tricks and jokes. He reached across the console to squeeze Billy’s knee. "Relax, Bills, I’m just trying to make you laugh. You’re making me nervous."

"You’re nervous?" Billy asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I’m nervous," Dom nodded, shrugging at his own honesty. "I don’t really do this sort of thing either, you know?"

They fell silent again as he kept driving. It was the truth; of all the relationships he’d had over the years, none of them had involved this, wining and dining a person to get to know him, to strengthen bonds, as a means to an end. Or a beginning. Dom wasn’t even sure he’d ever had what most people construed as a real relationship. He’d had mates, friends with benefits, one night stands, and crushes that never amounted to anything, but never anything truly resembling what he was tentatively beginning to fantasize about getting out of this. This whole thing with Billy was unknown territory entirely; frightening and exciting all at once.

As he finally turned on the street to their destination, he heard Billy give a low laugh of recognition and smiled himself as they passed the front of the Boston Museum of Fine Art and drove around into its car park. "See? I told you you’d been here before."

"Yeah," Billy answered as they got out of the car and he looked up at the façade with all the familiarity of an old friend. "It’s been a long time though. A year, at least."

"Really?" Dom questioned, "I’d have thought you’d be camped out here every weekend."

"I haven’t had that kind of time in ages," Billy muttered wistfully.

Dom paid the admission for both of them and opened up a pamphlet listing all of the permanent and visiting exhibitions. "Anything you really want to see?" he asked, very aware of Billy hovering close to read over his shoulder, "The Renaissance halls, of course."

Billy’s hand came over his arm to jab at the pamphlet excitedly, "Ooh, they’ve got a Manet exhibition! And Neo-Classics and Romanticism!"

Dom grinned, "Alright. And I want to see this: Early British Photographers. And this: Sketches in Bohemian Paris. Good?"

Billy smiled back at him, a real, wide smile, bright-eyed as he nearly bounded over to the map on the wall to locate the rooms where their choices were housed. Dom bit his lip and followed. This was _exactly_ why he’d brought him here.

 

Two hours later, after they’d been not-so-delicately urged to exit as the museum was closing for the night, Dom had them tucked into a booth at a quiet little bistro, and Billy was still going on about the art they’d seen.

"...and then with the Industrial Revolution, everything changed, and the Romantics—who were all about the beauty and emotion of the natural world—were just left completely by the wayside."

Dom leaned chin-on-hand, watching the way Billy’s neat hands gestured as he spoke across the table, the nuances of his expressions. He enjoyed all of it, from the glimmers he’d seen in class to the way Billy had lead him around the museum and spoken at length about his favorite pieces, obscure details about their origins and the artists, his voice rich and melodic in the big echoing rooms. This was how Billy truly came to life, talking about what he loved to someone who would give him an audience.

"It’s devastating to think about, you know. Friedrich was so well respected and successful early in his career, but then he died a recluse, completely forgotten. And then years later his work had become popular again, but with the ideals of the wrong side of the Second World War, so even in his death he was shunned for decades. Most people nowadays have never even heard of him." Billy glanced down at his plate of pasta, only half gone for how much he’d been talking. He picked up his fork again. "Sorry, I must be boring the shite out of you. You can tell me to shut it anytime, you know. Except in class."

"No, I like it," Dom said, sitting back in the plush booth. Billy eyed him doubtfully as he forked up more of his pasta. "I do. You do it in class too. I like you like this. You’re you, and not so..."

"What?" Billy challenged him to finish that with a raised eyebrow.

Dom winced preemptively. "You’re not so... uptight," he muttered, knowing that word he’d left off could derail how well things had been going. Billy put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back himself, looking away toward the bar. "Sorry," Dom added swiftly.

"No, you’re right," Billy said, to his surprise. He shook his head, "I don’t even know how I got like this. I’ve spent eight... no, _nine_ years slogging through uni, you know? Working my arse off, the whole way. They make it hard to get in, and hard to stay in, and I’m not even talking about the school work, either, that’s the easy bit. And it doesn’t matter if you get grants or anything else, there’s always something in your way."

Dom hesitated, "I suppose I didn’t help so much either."

Billy took that in, letting out a deep breath. "Well. It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? A couple more weeks and you’re free and clear, yeah?"

"Am I?" Dom answered, dropping his eyes to the table. "Not according to my dad. My arse is his, come June. He expects me to move back home and become his latest go-fer." He sighed, fingers tracing the checkers on the tablecloth, "I want nothing more than to tell him where he can shove it."

Billy looked him over speculatively, "Why don’t you?"

Dom took a deep breath himself. The answer to that question was probably a large part of what Billy resented him for, though honesty had got him farther than ever, here. "Because... he’ll cut me off if I don’t play according to his grand plan and be what he wants. And that scares the hell out of me."

He expected that to set Billy off, for him to say, _Well, that’s what it is to be an adult, Dominic, welcome to the real world, deal with it_ , and throw his napkin down on the table and say he’ll get a bus back home. But he didn’t. He reached for his wine glass, pushing its stem along the pattern of checkers on the tablecloth, collecting his thoughts before he spoke.

 "It’s not really that hard, you know." He gave a shrug as Dom looked back at him for explanation. "I mean, it is. It’s hard as fuck, when you’ve got loans to pay off, and classes all day, homework all night, _and_ have to find time to work somewhere in between. But you don’t have that problem, do you?"

Dom shook his head, almost shamefully, but Billy waved that off, "You’re just that much closer to it, then, once you’ve graduated. You’ll just have to get a job, and pay for your own flat. It probably won’t be that fancy Kendall Park loft, and it probably won’t be a job you particularly like or ever dreamt of doing. But in your off-time, you make up a website, enter contests, pander to galleries, get involved with the museum. And you’re capable, Dom, you’ve got the talent, with your sketches and your photographs. You’re that good. You just have to sell it."

Dom’s heart set right off, to hear Billy tell him that. Certainly he’d been told before, by his mum, by teachers through school, even by Viggo. But to get that validation from someone like Billy, who had cause to judge him more harshly than most and still came to that conclusion—it simultaneously made him want to explode and set off his age-old fear at the same time.

"How do you know what you want, so clearly?" he asked earnestly, and Billy’s brows tightened in question for him to elaborate. "You always knew what you wanted to do, to work in museums, be a curator. You’re so focused on it, that you can’t possibly fail, like you’ve always known that’s what you’ll be doing."

"No I didn’t," Billy retorted, his smile amused. "I don't even know if I want to be a curator, or a restorer or whatever else. I just know I want to get paid to do what I love." He took up his glass and drained the rest of his wine, contemplating the piece of junk art that hung above their table for a moment. "When I was little, Mum and Dad used to take us to Kelvingrove a few times a year. It’s the best museum in Glasgow, and it’s free admission, so. Once, there was a man there... a boy really, probably a student your age at the time. He’d set up this easel, right in the middle of the museum, and was painting a perfect recreation of the _Christ of Saint John of the Cross_."

Dom grinned. So that was why Billy was so interested in Dalí. He knew that painting well because he’d grown up staring at the original. No wonder it figured frequently anytime Billy brought up Surrealism.

"I watched him for hours, until my mum dragged me away," Billy continued. "At home, she set me up at the kitchen table with water paints, and I tried, Dom, I tried so hard to do what that boy had done. ‘Course, I was all of eight or nine years old at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to do that unless I was some sort of prodigy, but it was so frustrating.

"I took art classes all through school. I got jobs to be able to take extra classes at the community center. I filled a hundred sketchbooks with crap, Dom, because ultimately, I just don’t have that ability, to recreate what I see in front of me, or a scene out of my head. Not the way you do."

There was a stunning longing in his voice that set Dom’s heart off again, and Billy shifted to fold his arms on the table in front of his plate. "When I first started at Glasgow University, I used to work at this bar just across from the museum, where a lot of the curators used to go after work. One of them was also a professor of mine... Dr. Innes. Old man’s probably dead now, spent half his time drunk as a lord, but he and I used to chat quite a bit over his empties. One time, I had told him about having spent so much of my childhood at that museum, and he says, ‘You want to see behind the scenes?’

"And somehow, the old bastard used his credentials to give me a tour, past all those locked doors that say ‘employees only’. He showed me the archives and how much art isn’t even on the walls, but sits in storage drawers in the basements. He let me see the restoration rooms, through the windows, of course. Watched a bloke delicately scrubbing decades worth of dust off a Degas... It was eye opening. It was something I could do. So, I changed my focus," He paused and laughed, "Little did I know how much _more_ work I’d given myself."

Dom stared across the table, astonished at this rare insight at Billy, what made him, how he grew up. He’d never expected so much. The only thing keeping him from crawling over the table was their waitress collecting plates and asking if they’d like dessert. Billy began shaking his head no, but Dom quickly pushed the dessert menu toward him, "Go on, then, Bills. It’s not a date without pudding."

Billy grinned bashfully and conceded, pulling his glasses back out of his shirt pocket to read the small print, "Alright... the, ah... the pear panna cotta," he glanced across at Dom for approval.

Dom nodded smartly, keeping his eyes on Billy. "Two spoons. And more of this gorgeous Riesling."

The awkward silence held for the short time it took for their dessert and wine to arrive and was furthered by both of them going for the spoons at the same time, bumping hands. Billy jerked his back, but Dom grabbed for it before he got far, the very act of touching fingers tugging a nervous chuckle from them both. Letting go, Dom picked up one spoon and handed it to him, gesturing for him to have the first bite. Billy eyed him as he took the spoon and delicately broke the perfect surface of the custard, closing his eyes and unconsciously licking some of the sweet couli from his bottom lip. Dom nearly mirrored him, trying the pudding for himself and humming at the sweetness. Between them, they devoured it in minutes.

"Hundreds of sketchbooks, hm?" Dom murmured, licking the last of the sweetness off his spoon and mulling over the things Billy had said. "I’d like to see those."

Billy shook his head, leaving his spoon on the plate’s edge and sitting back with a smile, "Nooo. I doubt I even have any of them anymore. Anyway, none of them were any good."

"You are your own worst critic," Dom told him. "You’d be surprised what other people might say."

Billy’s head was still negating that. "My sister once told me one of them looked like the kids from Peanuts."

"Well that’s good, yeah?" Dom pointed, "Charles Schultz would be proud. You said everything has merit, even cartoons."

"Sure they do," Billy nodded, "But generally not when you were trying to emulate the style of Da Vinci."

Dom grinned at that, imagining it. "Well hey, Da Vinci did caricatures too. The man had a sense of humor. I’ll bet he’d think it’s fucking hilarious that some people think the Mona Lisa is supposed to be him in drag."

Billy laughed, "Do you?"

"Nah," Dom wrinkled his nose, "The man was a genius. If he wanted to draw himself in drag he’d’ve done a better job. Besides, that new copy they found makes it obvious that it’s a woman—La Gioconda."

"You saw it too, then?" Billy’s eyes lit right back up, "Under all that black lacquer was so much detail! And they think they were painted side-by-side at the same time, Da Vinci and his student Francesco Melzi. Christ, what I wouldn’t give to see them together. If the Louvre and the Prado did a joint exhibit..." He left off, looking achingly off in the middle distance.

"Well, the original is a bit disappointing, really, even if you get through the crowds to see it up close." Dom paused, then added, "Up close being ten feet away behind a rope, and through six inches of bulletproof glass. You can barely see any detail at all."

"Aye, well, you can’t expect anything else, can you, they way that piece has been treated over the years," Billy responded, almost without thought, still distracted. He gave a wistful sigh, bringing his eyes back to Dom. "So, you’ve been to the Louvre?"

"Yeah. On holiday with my parents," Dom nodded, "It’s one of the things that got me drawing, or kept me drawing, more seriously than I had. You haven’t been?"

"No. Paris is a bit out of my price range," Billy muttered, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he sighed, "I’ve dreamt of working there for ages. Fuck, I’d push a mop there if it meant I could look at the artwork all night."

"Why can’t you?" Dom asked, "People do work there, don’t they? They probably employ more curators and historians than any museum in the world."

"I put my name in when I got into the program here," Billy said, eyes looking faraway again and then pulling back with a shrug. "But everyone does, Dominic. You put your name down at the Louvre, the Duomo, Nat and Tate, the Met. It’s part of pretending you can play with the big boys. But everyone knows you’ve got to wait for some old bastard to retire, or die. They could probably wallpaper the whole palace and the mall underneath with their applicant list."

Dom nodded; it was probably true. "Well, your name is down, then. There’s still a chance. And in the mean time you could push a mop under _The Coronation of Napoleon_. A painting the size of the average parisian apartment."

Billy chuckled, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses. The waitress brought over the check, which Dom took, even as Billy politely argued for it. "You need to start saving up for Paris, Bills," he grinned lowly, which snapped Billy’s mouth shut and made his eyes that much more bright.

 

Billy’s neighborhood was cold and quiet was they walked back along the sidewalks and through the narrow alley to the back of the house.

"So, how was it, going on a date with someone as annoying as me?" Dom asked, turning to face Billy in the small patio between the sunken stairs and the rubbish bins.

Billy scuffed his shoes on the damp concrete in the dim yellow glow of the porch light before he looked back at him,"You’re not annoying." His gaze fell down Dom’s silk tie and waistcoat, then he tilted his head in thought, "Well, yes, you are, but—"

"I’m terribly annoying, don’t lie," Dom interrupted cheekily, tilting his head the opposite direction as he took a little step closer.

"You are," Billy conceded, a nervous smile flashing across his face. He closed the small distance between them and reached out to pinch the edge of Dom’s tie between his fingers, "But... sometimes, in an endearing way."

Dom’s grin softened, heart thundering as Billy used the tie to tug him in closer, brushing their lips tentatively together. He waited to see where Billy would go with this sweet initiation, and when he seemed to falter, he brought his hands up to Billy’s cheeks, gently tipping his head up and opening to him, tasting the remnants of wine and dessert as he delicately traced his bottom lip with his tongue. Billy released a puff of an exhale, his hand slipping down the tie, catching on his waistcoat, before it stopped and curled on his belt buckle. His lips broke from Dom’s long enough to breathe, "Come inside."

Dom’s mouth stretched to grin again, "Thought you didn’t put out on the first date."

"We both know I was lying," Billy snickered before he dragged him down the steps, struggling to get the door unlocked in the cold, and tugging Dom through to press him up against it once inside. Dom giggled at Billy’s enthusiasm, letting him explore his mouth, wet and deep and messy, his fingers tightening on lapels and popping the top button of the waistcoat before gripping his tie again.

"You were right about the bloody ties," Billy laughed, struggling with how tight he’d made the knot. "All I could think of all night was getting it off you."

"And doing what with it, might I ask?" Dom asked slyly.

"Any number of kinky things, you know. Could bind you, blindfold you, tie you to the bed, if it had posts. Have my wicked way."

"It’s always the quiet ones," Dom commented, gently taking Billy’s hands from his tie and twining their fingers, "Hey, slow it down, yeah?"

"What is it with you and slowing things like this down?" he breathed with a frustrated laugh.

"We’ve got all night, don’t we?"

Billy hesitated, his brows pinching together, "I have work tomorrow. At the framers."

"That’s okay with me," Dom said quickly, not wanting to be sent away now that he’d got this far. He leaned in to kiss some more, slowly, methodically drawing a hum out of Billy’s throat before mouthing along his jaw, tasting as he spoke against his skin, "Didn’t you ever just make out? You know, as a kid? Make out for hours because you were too afraid to do anything else?"

Billy smirked, "Do I look like the guy anyone made out with? My first kiss was Megan Dupree from the Ruchazie scheme. She used to steal my lunch money in exchange for not telling anyone I was from Cranhill side."

Dom giggled at how twee that was. "Not so bad then, if this Megan girl watched your back."

"She didn’t do that, she just plastered her big sloppy lips over mine and said not to tell anyone or I’d catch it. Her about the build and personality of a lorry, by the way."

"Oh, okay," Dom laughed. "Was it that bad? Wrong side of the tracks sort of thing?"

"Aye," Billy said, sliding Dom’s silky tie through his hand again, but didn’t elaborate further on it. "Bastard," he muttered, "Tell me to wear a tie and then you show up in a waistcoat." His fingers found the second button and tugged it open as Dom gave a knowing chuckle.

"I thought you’d like it."

"I do like it," Billy answered with a little shiver. "I want to take it off."

Dom pushed off the door and urged Billy back into the living room where it was slightly less drafty, "Yeah? What else do you want?" Billy’s hands pushed under the shoulders of Dom’s jacket, which he shrugged out of and tossed near the door, getting Billy out of his as well. 

Billy tugged open the last two buttons of the waistcoat and moved back to the tie, "I want all this off."

Dom backed him up some more, smiling as the seat of the sofa bumped his calves and he blindly grabbed Dom’s shoulders tight to catch himself. "What else?" he whispered against his mouth.

"Fuck. I want—" Billy’s eyes squeezed shut, the heat under his jeans obvious between them as his accent went decidedly thick, "I want to fuck you."

Dom smiled, pushing him gently down on the sofa and climbing over his lap. "Okay. But later."

"Fuck," Billy spat again, hands grabbing at his beltloops. "Why?"

Licking his lips, Dom drew his fingers from Billy’s shoulders down each side of his shirt, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. One hand took up the striped tie, his thumb tracing the pattern and flicked his eyes back up to Billy’s, "You really haven’t done this before?"

Billy exhaled, more out of frustration than anything. "Gonna keep asking me that? Not unless you count the last time this happened," he laughed, his smile fading at Dom’s serious face. "Why?"

"I just..." Dom muttered with a sigh of his own. There were plenty of answers, and questions of his own beneath it, but the last thing he wanted was to be kicked out the door now for being all emotional about it. Instead of answering, he kissed him, slow and deep, until Billy sank back into the sofa cushions, questions forgotten and his hand lighting on Dom’s head to push through his hair and grip. The warmth between them radiated, pushing away the chill still clinging to them from outside. Billy gave a hungry moan, sending a thrill through him. Billy wanted this. Wanted him, had agreed to come out with him in the first place after all the arguing and conflict they’d had over the past few months. They’d already had a quick, frantic roll, but he knew that was fueled by stress and opportunity. Dom wanted it to be different this time. He wanted it to be better.

Perched over him as he was, he let Billy tug the tails of his shirt out of his jeans and push underneath. His hands were cold; Dom’s skin jumped at the shock before accepting it as they breathed in each other’s laughter. He did the same with Billy’s shirt, the bottom several of buttons falling apart as Billy’s tummy squirmed at the chill of his fingers. He tensed and then went still as Dom’s hand skated over the hardness trapped in his jeans, a teasing touch before bring his hands back to safer territory. Billy pulled Dom close, kissing messily, teeth clicking together as he grabbed his head and growled into his mouth.

"See," Dom pulled away just enough to smile, "You like making out."

Billy made another affirmative noise while Dom curled his fingers into the waist of his jeans and used the leverage to pull their groins together, making Billy’s mouth drop open on a grunt. Dom grinned, mouthing along his jaw as he wriggled in his lap, hearing his breathing go a bit haywire. His tongue scraped over stubble and then earlobe, biting and soothing with his tongue and breath.

"Fuck, Dom," Billy’s hands dragged the waistcoat down off his arms. "Come on, please..."

Dom chuckled deep in his throat, climbing off. He took Billy’s hand to haul him up, then grabbed his striped tie and turning it once around his palm like a leash to lead him around the corner into his bedroom. Billy giggled, letting Dom push him down on the bed.

Billy flopped across the pillows, looking so uncharacteristically debauched, which was a sight. Tidy-to-a-fault Billy, with his shirt coming apart and tie all askew, jeans tenting out over his hard-on. He clawed his tie apart, tossing it to the floor and pulling his glasses off, setting them on the bedside table without looking away, since Dom was slowly dragging his own tie from his collar, dropping it on the floor near Billy’s.

He quirked his lips at the glasses from where he stood at the bed’s lower corner. "Thought you needed those," he commented, biting his lip flirtily.

"I do," Billy murmured, tucked one hand behind his mussed up hair to better watch Dom undress. "Up close, for reading. Forget I’m wearing them, most of the time."

Dom rounded his eyebrows as his fingers traveled down his shirt buttons, "Old man."

"Says the wee trollop doing a striptease in my bedroom," Billy’s eyes sparked hot, eyes dropping down the length of his body like they were tumbling down a precipice. "By all means, continue."

"Is that what this is?" Dom grinned, "Don’t I need a little _bom-chicka-wow-wow_ or something?" He gave himself a little rhythm from his pelvis for a minute, propping a knee on the corner of the bed. But instead of continuing, he left his shirt hanging open and leaned over, tugging off Billy’s shoes one at a time, and then his socks by the toes, hands smoothing over his ankles and the arches of his feet until his toes curled. He crawled up, catlike over Billy’s legs, watching his pupils dilate farther. Dropping low with a grin, he kissed the triangle of skin exposed just below Billy's belly button between the half-undone sides of shirt, hearing him suck a breath in from above. He kissed his way up, darting his tongue above his navel, tugging the remaining couple of buttons open with his teeth before he rose up and walked on his knees around him, until they were tucked neatly under Billy’s armpits.

"Can you still see without those?" he rasped, thumbing open one of the buttons on the fly of his jeans and tilting his head toward the glasses on the nightstand. "Up close and all."

"Christ, you’re so—" Billy took a shaky breath, eyes darting from Dom’s bared stomach to his nipples to the crotch directly in front of his face, "Such a fucking tease."

"Really?" Dom smiled wide, pulling his shirt the rest of the way off as Billy’s hands slid up to his hip pockets, tugging his jeans a little farther down on his hips. "I don’t think that was what you were going to say."

"No?" Billy muttered, fingers tracing the line of definition from his hip down into his denims.

"Sounded for a second like you might pay me a compliment," Dom urged him more upright, bringing Billy’s nose in close proximity to his crotch as Dom tugged one of his arms and then the other up to yank Billy’s shirt awkwardly off and prop the second pillow behind him.

"When have I ever done that?" Billy muttered distractedly, once settled back more comfortably.

Dom considered, quirking his mouth to one side before he brightened, "Outside actually, you said I was endearing. And you just called me a tease."

"You are, that’s hardly a compliment," Billy reached up, stroking one hand up and down the length of Dom’s abs, pausing where the hair thickened and darkened just below his navel. "You’ve always been a great big gorgeous tease."

Dom gasped at the word, and Billy snapped his mouth and eyes tight at the slip, covering them with a hand warm from Dom’s skin.

Sitting back on Billy’s thighs, Dom tugged the hand away from his face. "Gorgeous?" he asked in a curious whisper. 

Billy blushed furiously, eyes looking anywhere but back into his own, close and imploring as they were. "I’ve always thought so," he muttered, chest rising as he sighed, "Drove me crazy, to be so hot for you, when you were having a go at me all the time."

The thrill firing through Dom had him vibrating at such an astonishing secret. It was stunning, to think Billy had thought as much, had even been looking, even with all the flack Dom gave him. It wasn’t something he’d ever expected to hear. He slid forward, kissing him sweetly, until he felt Billy relax and let his hands fall onto his skin once again. Sitting back, Dom let his fingers gently trace the contours of Billy’s face. It was fascinating to be able to do this, finally, to outline the light arch of his brows, the straight slope of his nose, and the incredible bow of his upper lip. "You are too, you know," he said, dropping that word low in his throat. "Gorgeous."

Billy snorted, "Go on, Dom. You don’t have to say so just because I did."

"I’m not," Dom insisted, "I’ve been staring at you all semester, you know," He leaned in to kiss the flat of Billy’s cheek, and smiled. "I’ve got sketchbooks full of your face to prove it."

"Bullshit," Billy laughed. 

"I’ll show you sometime," Dom promised.

"You’ve got sketchbooks full of Bloom’s arse too. I don’t even want to know what you’ve done with Elijah."

Dom chuckled, "Lij has never let me do anything beyond take his picture. And he gets pissy if any of them come off as remotely twinky. Doesn’t think he actually is, it must be something I’ve done."

"What’s up with him?" Billy huffed an breath, "He’s always such a prick."

Dom hummed, sliding down to lie on top of him as he considered how to answer. "He’s just... been on the defensive all his life, I guess. The way his dad expects him to be, all balls and machismo, when he’s actually just really sweet and harmless." He nudged the round of his nose into Billy’s cheek. "So have you, eh?"

"I suppose," Billy exhaled heavily, "‘S what happens when people make a point to harass and annoy someone for no reason. You’re annoying me right now."

"Am I?" Dom lifted up a little at that.

"Yeah," Billy pushing his hips up against Dom’s to illustrate, "Is it later yet?"

Dom laughed lowly, pressing his own hips down just to see Billy’s eyes roll back as they dropped closed. "Did I say something about later?"

"You said I could fuck you later," Billy insisted, pushing his fingers against the muscles in Dom’s back, "I remember."

"And here I thought you appreciated me for my wit."

Billy boldly reached down and tugged Dom’s pelvis as close as possible, "Your wit’s been tormenting me almost as much as your arse." His hands squeezed, as if realizing what they’d just come upon, thumbs stroking over the denim seam down the middle. "Why are there still clothes?"

Dom laughed and kissed Billy hard, sweeping through his mouth and grinding their hips together with the nearly painful scrape of denim before he pulled himself fully free, Billy’s strong arms reluctant to let go. He undid Billy’s belt first, tugging his fly open as Billy helpfully shoved his jeans down and kicked them unceremoniously off. Dom raised his eyebrows as he inched Billy’s boxers down. "Did a little manscaping, did we?" he asked, throwing the clothes off the bed.

"Shut it," Billy went pink as Dom pulled them the rest of the way down and off, "Found the attachment thing to my shaver. Thought about doing my chest too."

Dom gasped, putting his hands over Billy’s little pink nipples protectively, "Don’t you dare."

"No?"

"No way," he ran his hand through it, still surprised by how much he liked the chest hair. Petting that hand down to his crotch, he pulled his fingers through the neatened but not naked trimming down there, the way he did himself. The very idea that Billy had done it because someone— _Dom_ —was actually looking now was both amusing and surprisingly sweet. He gave Billy a little smile, "I like this, though."

He ran into the problem of trying to kick off his own shoes while simultaneously taking Billy’s hard, red cock in hand and thumbing open his own fly, which mostly just made him lose his balance. Billy smirked, palming himself while Dom sat back with a shrug and tugged his shoes and socks off. He took the strip of condoms and tube of lube out of his pocket, tossing them on the bedspread before he peeled the his fly apart and shucked the jeans down and to the floor, but Billy’s eyes had followed the accessories, tentatively turning the tube over on the blankets, another small reminder of his inexperience.

Lying back alongside him, Dom searched his face. "What’re you thinking?" he asked. He doubted there was fear behind it, but clearly there was something going on behind his eyes.

Billy just shook his head, dropping the lube in the narrow space between them and turning on his side toward him. His hand traced Dom’s collarbone, slipped down to brush over the dark red disk of his nipple, making him bite his lip. Given that, he pushed Dom over on his back, crawling up over him to tip down and taste the little hardened nub of it, and the other.

Dom sprawled, letting Billy explore, watching while he traced the shapes of his body with his fingers and then with his lips and tongue, mapping his shoulders, stomach, thighs, and pelvis until Dom was breathing quite hard. He felt like one of Billy’s pieces of museum art whose details he paid so much loving attention. He rumbled a laugh to himself.

"What are you giggling at now?" Billy murmured from down near his groin, his cock bobbing hopefully off his stomach at the proximity.

"I was just wondering if you’d do this to the statue of David, given the chance."

Billy snickered. "Not likely. He’s a big bloke, you know, seventeen feet tall. Kind of intimidating. Also hard to tip over."

"But hard as a rock all the time," Dom quipped, and his erection leapt illustratively as Billy erupted another laugh against his hip, then crawled back up to his face. "Are you always this chatty in bed?"

Dom pursed his lips. "Not always," he reached down, getting both Billy and himself in one hand and stroking lightly, watching Billy’s eyelids and his jaw go lax. Rolling him to his back again, he found the condoms and lube between folds of the quilt, squirting a little of it in his hand and letting it lightly coat Billy’s cock as he gave it a lazy tug. The rest he rubbed over his own, enjoying the warmth and ease of it over his skin before he ripped a condom from the strip and tore it open with his teeth, tossing the rest onto the nightstand. Rolling it down on Billy, he found the lube again to coat his fingers and reached behind himself.

It had actually been quite awhile since he’d been laid, having been pursuing Billy in the last few months. Not that he didn’t wank plenty, but he hadn’t bottomed in a while either, probably not since last year. He tipped back down to Billy’s mouth, tongues twisting messily as he tried and failed to multitask. It wasn’t long before Billy’s hand was following his arm back to what he was doing.

Dom lifted his upper leg helpfully, murmuring, "Go this way." Billy grabbed for the tube between them to slick his own fingers and reached between his legs, slipping back behind his balls. Dom hissed as Billy’s index pushed inside, between his own two fingers from the back.

"Does it hurt?" Billy asked.

Dom shook his head, taking a deep breath as his forehead bumped and then braced against Billy’s. "Feels good," he whispered, his own breathing go deep and heavy again as his body opened up and warmth fired through him. He withdrew his own fingers, letting Billy take over that entirely and reached down to stroke Billy’s prick again. "You’ve never done this? To yourself?"

"A little," Billy confessed, tipping his hips up into Dom’s grip while still pushing his narrow little fingers—two now—in and back out, quite gently, his wrist rubbing the underside of Dom’s balls with each movement. "Didn’t spend that much time on it, really. It did hurt."

"Silly Billy," Dom breathed a laugh. "It hurts the first few times, I won’t lie. Or if your top is just huge and not careful about it. It’s just really intense until you get use to it. But then it’s the best thing, Bills. I come so hard from it."

"Fuck," Billy groaned, pulling his fingers out to bring Dom closer, "I want that, want to make you come."

"Yeah," Dom lifted up, straddling him and squirted a generous amount of lube into his hand to slick Billy. He kneed farther up, reaching back to guide Billy’s cock to his arsehole, watching him shudder as he bore down on it, felt him slide slowly in. Billy’s hands shakily grabbed for his hips, legs squirming on the blankets as he locked eyes with Dom above him, mouth dropping open.

Dom smiled down at him, stopping his descent halfway and lifting slowly back up, "Good?"

" _Fuck yeah_ ," Billy gasped, and as Dom pressed down again, he got his heels braced and thrust up, getting himself fully seated inside with a surprised noise. Dom groaned, lifting up as Billy pulled back and did it again, and again. His attempts were erratic, over-enthusiastically trying to set a pace faster than Dom’s and getting dislodged. His eyes popped open at such sudden lack of sensation and looked so distraught that Dom giggled.

"Easy, Bills," he said, guiding Billy back in again before he reached back with both hands, one on each of Billy’s thighs to both hold them down and brace himself. Arching his back, he used his thigh muscles to rise and fall with some more momentum, moaning at how Billy’s cock plumbed right up against his prostate. He heard a string of filth come from Billy’s mouth and felt his fingers dig into his thighs. "Like that?" he gasped.

"Fucking hell, your arse is fucking magic," Billy’s voice stuttered, wild and unsteady.

Laughing, Dom sat back up straight, lifting up onto his feet to get the leverage to bounce right on him, "Your cock’s pretty fucking amazing too," he breathed between grunts. The expression on Billy’s face was absolute awe, his eyes completely dazed and beautiful mouth open, releasing sounds in time to the rhythm of their fucking. His cheeks were so pink the freckles there stood out, and Dom couldn’t help but lean closer to brush them with kisses. Billy whimpered, turning to find and seize his mouth with his own.

Suddenly Billy heaved them both up, gathering Dom in a tangle of arms and legs in that astonishing strength till they were both sitting upright, Dom still cradled in his lap and wriggling. Without pulling out, he tipped Dom between his thighs to his back, lifting his hips to get his own legs under him and pull Dom’s pelvis more securely back into his own, driving his cock back in deeply with a growl.

Dom laughed, pulling his knees back and bracing his bare feet against the bulging muscles of Billy’s arm and shoulder. He’d been manhandled plenty, but usually by guys considerably bigger than himself. Having Billy do it was easily one of the hotter things he’d experienced. He watched Billy sliding a hand down the inside of his thigh and try to reestablish a pace from this new position. "I see how it is," he murmured, low and sexy, licking his lips, "Wanna be in charge, Mr. Boyd?"

Billy breathed a laugh, sinking in deep and getting a groan out of Dom for it. He pulled back, all the way out, having to grip himself at the base to push back in, a curse falling out of his mouth. He did it again, letting just the head of his cock push in and back out.

Dom let his head drop back and breathed, knowing exactly what Billy was doing as he watched with hooded eyes. "Feels fantastic, doesn’t it, my arse right round your cockhead, yeah?" Dom deliberately tightened up his pelvic muscles, and grinned as Billy’s face scrunched up in complete ecstasy. "Gotcha."

"Fuck, that... fucking mouth of yours," Billy gritted out. 

"Could do that too," Dom licked his lips messily again, making Billy growl and drop down to kiss him, hard and searing as his hips worked in circles, hitting a pace and drive that tipped a delicate balance, making Dom gasp with every stroke at the white hot pleasure of it. "Christ, Billy, yeah."

 The sheer sound of Billy grunting in his ear and fucking him deep as he had him folded in half with his head nearly hanging off the back of the mattress shot Dom’s self control all to hell. He’d imagined this, fantasized about it, what Billy would sound like, how he’d feel, whether he’d be nervous and too careful. But the reality was that Billy was hard and strong above him, inside him, fucking him with a instinctual carnal need that pushed every button Dom needed him to.

"Oh god. Oh fuck, Billy, yeah," the words started tumbling out between moans and gasps. "Fuck me. Harder. Hard as you want."

"Christ," Billy breathed and did, bracing his arms on the bed, his hips slapping up against the backs of Dom’s thighs, his rhythm going completely primal. It gave Dom room to grab his cock, ratcheting up the tension swirling around and starting to collect in his balls. Above him, Billy’s pumping made the moans and breaths from his throat interrupted, an almost-vibrato of song, his skin shiny with sweat, muscles that were always hidden under clothes tight and working hard. Dom jerked his hand up and down his prick, the other reaching down and below to feel where they were connected, to feel Billy’s cock pounding into him. 

"You’re so fucking sexy, Billy," he breathed, right before his stomach and arse and balls clenched and he came with a whimper, a string of white shooting across his own chest and the rest oozing onto his belly.

"Oh _fuck_ , Dom," Billy gasped, shoving deep into him, a strong telltale tremble going through him as Billy’s voice went abruptly high and full of desperate release.

Their breathing heaved together, Billy still firmly planted inside him as they searched for air. When Billy’s eyes opened and found his, the first thing he did was push an arm under Dom’s shoulder and scoot them both back a little bit, enough to get the mattress back under Dom’s head. "Sorry," he murmured, and gave an enormous exhale, palming one side of Dom’s face and dropping his face into the crook of his neck.

Dom hummed, petting one hand up and down Billy’s back, enjoying the puffs of his hot breath and his comforting weight pressing him down. It was far too soon when Billy apologized again, "Sorry, don’t mean to squash you."

"No... you’re not heavy," Dom insisted, but he’d already lifted off, breath hissing through his teeth as he slowly pulled out. He scrunched his face in disgust, plucking at the condom’s edge and then at the filled tip, before he laughed and probably would’ve blushed if his face wasn’t already red with exertion. "How do I get this thing off?"

Dom chuckled, sitting up to gently slip it off Billy’s softening prick with as little fuss as possible. He tied it, dropping it off the edge of the bed and noting where it landed so he could pick it up later. He pushed Billy back up toward the pillows and lay half on top of him, getting a thigh between his legs and tugging the half of the quilt they weren’t laying on around the pair of them as Billy gave a shiver at the chill air penetrating his sweaty, cooling skin.

"So was it good for you?" Dom joked, pulling a laugh from Billy immediately at the cliché.

"Fuck yes," he giggled, his breath still evening out, but his body loosening to the fully sated sprawl of a good lay. "Was it good for you?" he aimed to kid back, apple green eyes flicking to find his when Dom didn’t answer. He smiled, asking again in a shy whisper, "Was it?"

Dom stretched up, nuzzling against his nose and cheek softly, giving him a genuine answer in a low voice, "Fuck yes," before he kissed his lips and his chin and neck. "Was very, very good."

Billy inhaled deeply, relaxing further, his fingers plucking at the bedspread, belatedly laughing. "Shite, now I have to do laundry again."

Dom lazily necked him, basking in the warmth and smell of the pair of them. "Later. Tomorrow. Sheets are still clean."

Billy rumbled a laugh that shook them both. "So you’re sleeping here, eh? Settling right in?" He teased, and Dom leveled a sparkling, hopeful gaze at him and kissed his mouth again. "I have work tomorrow, Dom," Billy reminded, sighing as he caressed Dom’s back under the blanket. "Which means I’ve got to shower. I smell."

"You smell like me," Dom rumbled with a grin, nipping his chin.

Aye," Billy poked him in the chest, that was still decorated with a sticky streak of his own come, "Filthy bastard. Not a good aroma for framing people’s pretty photos." He punctuated that with another poke.

Dom grumbled, inhaling their combined scent on Billy’s skin once more before he sat up, tugging Billy with him. "Fine, fine. Come on, you."

He frogmarched Billy to the bathroom, both giggling as Dom eyed and then palmed Billy’s little arse on the way. Billy flipped on the tap, turning awkwardly back to Dom, still standing naked in the tiny loo. "It takes a minute or two to warm up." He scratched his head, darting his eyes out the door, "I’ve, ah, only got the one big towel."

Dom shrugged, biting his lip at Billy’s sudden return to nerves in the too-bright light. Once the water started to steam and Dom followed him into the little stand-up shower, tugging the curtain around them, Billy seemed even more unsure.

Grinning, Dom found the shampoo on a wire rack hanging from the shower head, and set to lathering Billy’s hair while he tentatively touched his chest again.

"Do all your dates end like this, then?" Billy asked. "Showers and sleepovers?"

"Dunno," Dom quipped, smiling as he dipped in close to kiss Billy’s nose, and then his mouth, wiping foam from his forehead to keep it from running in his eyes. "It’s my first date."


	16. Chapter 16

It was warm when Billy's alarm went off in the morning. Far warmer than it ever was in the basement flat in April. It took snaking an arm from underneath all that wonderful perfect warmth and slapping the alarm off to realize why—Dom was wrapped around him. His arm tightened around Billy's ribs, pushing his round nose deeper into Billy's neck with a sleepy hum. The naked thigh nestled between Billy's legs drew slowly up and then back down as he shifted, fighting wakefulness, and things became invariably warmer beneath the sheets.

Billy tipped his chin down a bit, catching a glimpse of the thick dark feather of Dom's eyelashes, and the slope of the back of his neck disappearing under the quilt. He could feel the brush of his soft hair against his cheek, smell the sleepy clean scent of him. He took a deep breath and murmured, "I've got to leave for work in a half hour."

"Hm-mmm," was the answer, mumbled into his neck, before warm lips parted and kissed there. Billy swallowed, and Dom's arm slid down to his hip and back up as his lips trailed along his jaw and up to his lips.

The kissing was enough to wake him up entirely. Billy'd rarely had too much trouble getting out of bed early every morning; whether it was school or work, he always had somewhere to be. But Dom's mouth and skin and his sexy, sleepy little noises were making that very difficult. "Dom, I've got to go," he whinged as Dom straddled fully over him, morning hard-on brushing his own, tracing kisses along his collarbones and then down to suck over the pink of a nipple. Billy brought his hand to Dom's hair, meaning to push him away, but quickly found that was a mistake, getting distracted by the silky soft strands, the way his fringe tickled his chest as Dom traced his ribs with his tongue. "Dominic..."

"Call in."

Billy snorted, "I don't... I've never called in."

"First time for everything, isn't there?" Dom shot a pointed grin up at him.

"I... I don't think Janeane would..."

"Tell her there's a man in your bed who's about to suck you off."

Blurting an incredulous laugh, Billy looked down, catching the wicked, astonishingly sapphire blue of those eyes flashing back up at him, as Dom swiped his tongue over the rim of his navel, dragging the covers down with his shoulders, and then ducked his head beneath them. Moments later there was breath, dragon hot over his prick beneath the sheets.

"Fuck," Billy breathed with a shiver.

A few seconds of that passed before the sheets lifted open over Dom's head, cold air assaulting his skin as Dom propped his chin on one hand and gave him a _waiting on you, mate_ look. Scrubbing at his face, Billy grabbed for his mobile from the nightstand.

"Janeane, it's Bill. Yeah, I'm, ah, not feeling good." He lied when his boss answered. Dom's grinned became invariably more naughty as he stroked just the tip of one finger up the length of him, making him hold his breath and squirm. The sheets dropped back over Dom's head and the lava breath was back.

"Yeah, I think... ah. I think I've got a fever. Feeling really, really warm." He swallowed, biting back on a moan as he felt the first damp tease of tongue.

"Uh-huh," Janeane dropped sarcastically. "That's convenient, since you're already down for a half shift today so you can study," she reminded him. 

He'd completely forgotten he'd made that arrangement in light of this coming week. "I... you're right, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it, just do what you've got to do. You'll feel much better once it's all over."

"I will. Thanks, Janeane, I really appreciate it." He rung off quick and smacked the lump of Dom's head under the covers. "Bastard. That was your plan all along, wasn't it?"

A gravelly laugh came from beneath, before Dom's staticky head emerged again, "Maybe."

"I don't get paid sick days, you know," he complained, even as Dom mouthed and then nipped at the inside of his thigh. "You're making me poor."

Dom sent a smile back up at him, taking his cock in hand and giving it a decadent stroke, rumbling as he hovered intently over the head, "Then I guess I'll have to make it worth your while."

 

The remainder of the morning saw them settling into a booth at the diner across from the laundromat Billy frequented. Dom had insisted not only on helping him cart both his bed linens and the rest of his washing, but had also pushed a twenty into the coin machine to pay for it. Billy'd never been to the diner for more than a cup of coffee; it was hard enough to afford to do the laundry, never mind have a meal out, but Dom was still riding last night's coattails and citing Paris whenever possible. 

The waitress appeared with their drinks and took their order. As she left, Billy reached for the sugar, doctoring his coffee to his taste and inhaling the blessed aroma. Dom, on the other hand, followed her retreat to the kitchen before he brought the abused looking moleskine he'd grabbed from beneath the seat of his car up to the table. He plucked a thin plastic card from its pages, flipped to a clean page near the end and bent the spine, then put the plastic between the page he'd selected and the others. Billy watched this, perplexed until Dom dabbed his fingers into his teacup and dripped it onto the paper, smearing it around into a random pattern like fingerpaints.

Billy cracked a smile, remembering. "Your own version of expression, eh?"

Dom grinned widely, shrugging his shoulders. He then picked up the salt shaker, darting a look around for the waitress again as if he was doing something naughty, sprinkled a bit in his palm and sifted the crystals carefully onto the wet brownish blotches on the paper. At Billy's confusion, he tossed the remainder of salt over his shoulder and pushed the notebook across for him to see.

"The salt reacts with the pigment as it dries. Leaves kind of a neat texture. You'll see." He pulled the book out of their way, propping its edge flat with with the napkin dispenser so the splatters would dry. Dom quirked his mouth, "I'm surprised you don't know that already."

"Know what?" 

"The salt thing. It's a common watercolor technique."

Billy shrugged, rubbing at his unshaven chin. "I guess I haven't studied watercolorists so much. Most of my favourites worked in—"

"In oils, yeah," Dom laughed, waving a hand over the book to dry it.

Billy watched his hand, with its long, elegant fingers and strings round his wrist, "Do you ever paint? Besides with tea."

Dom lifted his shoulders, "I have, yeah, mostly for school. But I'm not so good at it. Especially oils, you know, they take so long for each layer to dry. I don't have that kind of patience." Billy smirked at that, and Dom went on, "I like my markers and pens the most. You make a mark and it's permanent, you can't erase it. So if you make a mistake, you either have to make it work or start all over."

"I'd rather erase it," Billy chuckled.

"That's what my dad says. Typical architect, everything on the paper better damn well be perfect." Dom's fingers unconsciously went to the sketchbook again, thumbing the corner of the pages. "He hates my work, especially my drafting. Says it's messy. Like my life."

Billy pondered that, watching the way Dom fidgeted across from him, wearing one of Billy's own white undershirts with his jeans and looking somehow changed, transformed by the sunlight and the tentative promise of spring outside, clean and soft and remarkably different from his brand-name clothes and slick, cool swagger on campus. From what he'd heard of Dom's father, he was a strict man who expected much from his son, and Billy could understand where he was coming from to a degree—wanting an heir to take over the business, feeling as if he was solidifying both his family's future and its fortune by it. Certainly a concept that hadn't existed in Billy's family. Any variety of work was good for his sort, and a white collar career would be commendable step up and out. Even so, Billy's own gran had worried about his aspirations. She knew the arts were a career choice in which competition was high and pay was typically low. But she'd encouraged him nonetheless, because it was something, and it was better than factory work like the futures of so many other East End Glasgow kids.

Glancing down at his own undershirt, he felt the sting of what Gran might say if she'd seen him wearing nothing but a t-shirt out in public. He still felt the guilty itch to put his jumper back on over it, though the diner had the heat properly cranked. She'd been a strict old bird about many things herself. She'd never known he fancied the lads though, at least that he'd been aware of, and might well have been scandalized by Dom, who lived everything he was right out in the open. It wasn't that Billy had ever really been hiding this side of himself, he just hadn't ever had the guts to explore it, not properly, beyond the few quiet, one-sided crushes he'd indulged throughout his time at school. 

Dom glanced at his watch, scooting out of the booth with the chink of quarters in his pockets, and pointed out the windows, "Gonna go change those loads over."

Billy watched him go, studying his every move through the world now, from the jingle of the bell over the diner's door, to the way he hunched up his shoulders and hopped in place in the chilly sunshine, missing the jacket he'd left draped over the back of the booth while he waited for a car to pass, then trotted across the street and into the laundromat.

He recalled the morning, full of warmth and skin, filthy jokes and laughing. His cheeks ached from it, and went hot at the joke his mind formed about which set, even without Dom here to share it with. He laughed to himself, tilting his head to look closer at the moleskine sketchbook. Like Dom had said, the grains of salt were doing something odd to the streaks of brown as they dried, making a strange snowflake field of texture.

He considered last night, and this date he'd so foolishly agreed to. But it _had_ been fun. Of course, Dom had taken him to a place where he was practically guaranteed to enjoy himself, but the fact that Dom knew it spoke to his intuition. Not that it wasn't obvious, but they could have just as well gone to a movie, where they wouldn't have spoken at all. Instead, Dom had had Billy relaxed and unloading perhaps more than he normally would to someone he'd previously regarded with caution, this lad who had teased and tormented and gone out of his way to irritate him for the last year. It wasn't long ago that having Dom anywhere nearby would put his hackles up, ready for the inevitable attack. Come to think of it, his body's reactions ever since the day Dom had kissed him on his sofa felt rather the same, the way his heart plummeted in his gut and the hair on his arms went on end. He began to wonder when it had shifted from being a bad feeling to a good one, or whether he had misinterpreted Dom's intentions all along.

And then there was the sex, which was unbelievably, mind-numbingly good. Not that he had any basis for comparison, but his typical quick fierce wanks before the shower went cold had nothing on the real thing. He wanted more of this morning and last night, a lot more. Even now he felt more relaxed, less stressed than he had in possibly years, which, considering his upcoming week, was strange and a bit frightening. 

His proposal, _shite_. The manuscript itself was done and submitted to the committee, there was little more he could change or improve on now, beyond any points he may have to argue in his presentation. As for the exams, he doubted he wasn't ready there either, he knew the material inside and out. Still, he didn't—or shouldn't—feel safe if he wasn't studying, reviewing, or otherwise transfusing the last few years worth of knowledge into his bloodstream every second until then. Plus he had preparations to make afterwards. There were research fellowships to investigate, and he'd picked up an internship flyer from the museum that might be promising. Not to mention the additional work Viggo had asked of him. What happened in this next week would dictate the direction of his life for the the next year, possibly two, and all of it factored in on how soon he would be able to go home, when he could finally stop being a student and start having something resembling a career.

The waitress arrived with their food, breaking his daze as his plate of eggs and sausages was set before him and a frittata and bowl of fruit in the empty seat opposite. Shortly after, Dom was back with a jingle, palming Billy's head on the way to flopping back on his side of the booth and tucking happily in. They ate in amiable silence, a breakfast that Billy very rarely had the time or inclination for, but it was welcome nonetheless.

"So," Dom said, pushing his plate aside and pulling the moleskine toward him, testing the brown tea stains on the paper with his fingertips. "What do you want to do today? Aside from from the laundry?" He pulled a pen from the elastic holder on the book, and started sketching something over the dried tea.

"I dunno," Billy murmured, distracted both by his food and watching Dom, struck for the first time by the rather unusual way he held his pen. He set his fork down and picked up his coffee, watching as Dom paused, squinted at him and then drew a new line across what he'd been doing.

He was again reminded how he'd skivved off work, on a day when he'd fully intended to be using the afternoon to throw himself to his books, looking out the windows and away from Dom. What a bad time to be losing his work ethic to a befuddling, persistent little arse who annoyed him at the best of times. In an endearing sort of way. He felt the smile coming to his face already at that, looking back to Dom and arching a brow. "Don't you have exams to study for as well?"

Dom shrugged, smiling himself as his pen kept on, poking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he now made quick, loose hash marks across parts of the picture.

Billy set his elbows on the table, blowing out a breath that made his fringe fluff up from his forehead. "I really should go to the library. I meant to be studying anyway, this afternoon."

"Always at the library," Dom muttered with a shade of amusement. He scrawled something across the bottom corner of the page, and then turned the book and lifted it so Billy could see the drawing.

Billy inhaled sharply as he registered what it was, reaching for it to have a closer look. It was _him_ , sat in this very booth, his coffee cup in hand and his gaze out the window. The lines were loose, relaxed, some might even say messy given that it was done in mere minutes, but each stroke had its place. The hashmarks made shadows, the tea midtones, and even points where the salt had lightened the staining looked like touches of sunlight across the planes of his own face and shoulder. It looked planned, even when it couldn't have been.

He flipped back a page, finding a view of a city street much like this one, and another, a squirrel and a pigeon beside a sidewalk trash can. There was Orlando sleeping on a sofa in rumpled clothes, then another of himself, at the podium of Mort's classroom, and one of Viggo at the desk in his office with his boots propped on its edge. All with the same spontaneous nature, the random tea stains and a date on the bottom, and a rare sense of moments and emotions captured in time.

He raised his eyes, finding Dom's regarding him with soft candor as he pulled his fruit bowl closer to pop the remaining wedges of melon into his mouth.

"Christ, your da really has no idea," he shook his head in awe, looking through the rest of the moleskine book. Something in his chest gave a funny wriggle each time he came across a drawing of himself, remembering what Dom had said last night in his bed. "If you can do this kind of thing in five minutes, you could do so many things with it, Dom."

Dom bit his lip, rising from his side of the table and plucking the check from edge of it. He ruffled Billy's hair again, leaning down to kiss his temple before he went to the cash register to pay.

Billy glanced around briefly, though he recognized no one from school in the diner. The waitress came by to clear their empty plates, eyes flicking from Dom to him with a smile. Billy squeezed his eyes shut, laughing to himself. So often public displays of affection annoyed him, especially from Dom, who was the most unnecessarily tactile person he'd ever seen, planting kisses on everyone, but suddenly being on the receiving end made him feel decidedly different, and ridiculously giddy.

 

Back at his flat, Billy busied himself putting his clothes away and making up his bed. He really ought to pull out the fucking ironing board and press his work clothes for the week, but nothing about that was appealing, and he'd arranged to have the next three days off from Morton's anyhow. The sounds of Dom shuffling around in his flat were a far more welcome distraction. He followed them, finding Dom pulling his dress shirt from last night back on, but leaving it unbuttoned with the t-shirt beneath. He had folded his waistcoat, jacket and tie in a neat pile over the arm of the sofa. Even with the clear sense that it was time to leave Billy to his studies, he lingered, setting down his sketchbook on the coffee table to pick up a letter there announcing the upcoming commencement location, rehearsal and ceremony dates, a copy of which he probably had received as well.

"My parents are flying out for this," he waved the letter idly, his expression a bit pinched. "Booked their hotel and everything already."

Billy nodded acknowledgement, watching him, "Your mates' as well?"

"I think Elijah's will," Dom replied. "Orli never really sees his parents. They're always off somewhere—business trips and such."

Humming vague interest, Billy picked up Dom's moleskine, itching to see those drawings again, to study every line and detail of them.

Dom set down the letter and turned about the tiny room, stopping at the photographs on the bookshelf. “Will your sister come out?”

“Nah. ‘S not a cheap flight, you know, and anyway, she’s got James. Lad’s hard enough to keep track of at home.”

“What about your parents?” Dom asked.

Billy’s eyes came around shortly before going back to the drawing of himself. “They’re, ehm... gone. So, no.”

He studied it until, realizing how silent Dom was, he looked back up and found him still staring at the photos, looking rather stunned. Setting the sketchbook aside, he came up behind him, hesitating for a moment before he put his hands on Dom's shoulders, looking over the right one at the photo of his parents with him. They were sat on a picnic blanket in a park beneath an old oak, a place they'd frequently taken he and his sister so many years ago in the city, alive and happy in the freeze-frame of a photograph. He couldn't remember when it had been taken, or by whom, or where he had been at the time.

Still, he could see Dom worrying his bottom lip in the telling silence, and gave him a little squeeze. “It’s alright, ya daftie. You didn’t hurt my feelings, bringing them up. It was a long time ago.” He pushed his nose into the warm hair behind his ear, inhaling the clean scent there. “Da was sick. Cancer, product of factory work, you know. Mum went about five months after he did. I was thirteen.” He surprised himself at being so forthcoming.

Dom's voice was uncharacteristically quiet and tentative, “I didn't realize, when you said they were back in Glasgow, you meant..." He swallowed between his cautious words, "And then... your gran, just this Christmas?”

“Mid-November, but yeah," Billy corrected gently. "Gran lived to be a hundred. She’d a good go of it, too, taking care of me and Mags when we were teenagers. It wasn’t unexpected. Just... badly timed." He gave that a guilty laugh and pressed his face into Dom shoulder.

Turning, Dom's hands smoothed over his arms, his eyes bright and sad, obviously affected by all this. "I'm really sorry I've been such an arse to you. You know that, yeah?"

Billy shook his head, muttering, "It's alright." His own hands slid up along Dom's lithe frame, down his sides and around, a smile teasing at his mouth as he brought them down over the back of Dom's jeans. "Turns out I like your arse a bit."

Grinning, Dom kissed him, sweet and light at first, then deeper, bringing all that heat right up to the surface again. Billy took a deep breath as Dom's mouth went for his neck. He needed to put a stop to this if he was going to get anything useful done today. "Dom, wait." He pushed against him, but Dom didn't relent, "Slow down."

"What is it with you and slowing things like this down?" Dom chuckled low and sexy, pulling a bubble of mirth from him as they gently wrestled, Billy trying to get those dangerous hands off and Dom to keep them moving and caressing.

He finally broke away, physically taking a few steps back and pushing his hands deeply in his pockets. "I need you to leave me alone," he said, harder than he'd meant. Dom's expression went wide, as stunned and hurt as if Billy had hit him across the face, twisting Billy's insides as he amended quickly. "Just... just for a while."

Dom wiped his mouth and stepped backward, those eyes still searching for explanation. Billy shook his head, casting about the room for one. "I just... I've got quals, Dom. One tomorrow and another on Tuesday. And then Wednesday is my proposal. I shouldn't have even agreed to this with all that coming up, to you..." He broke off and touched Dom's silky tie on the sofa arm, smiling and trying to make him understand. "Fuck, but you distract me, you know? I can't bloody concentrate with you around me anymore."

A smile gradually reappeared on Dom's lips as his body relaxed a little. "Okay," he murmured, nodding, "So... you need me to back off for a bit." He contradicted that by stepping closer.

"Just for a while. Till after Wednesday, at least," Billy reiterated, "Maybe a little longer, to the weekend. I've got some other things I've got to take care of before the end of classes."

Dom was closer still, grabbing Billy's hands and his eyes sparking, "Because I make you so randy, you can't think of anything else."

Billy laughed, feeling his face heat up yet again. "Pretty much."

"Because you think I'm gorgeous," Dom teased, sidling in.

"Christ, you're a pain in my arse," Billy pulled his hand from Dom's grasp to scrub at his face with it.

"I could be," Dom shot back, joking and hopeful, and Billy's eyes went wide and curious. "I really could just bend you over right now," Dom insinuated himself right up against him again, pushing him against the arm of the sofa and whispered, "Right here."

Billy breathed a laugh, momentarily closing his eyes and shaking his head at Dom's teasing. The kind that just weeks ago used to grate his nerves raw. Then kind he really, _really_ wanted to go right along with, fuck his proposal and his exams. "Just... give me time to sort myself out, and then..."

"Then..." Dom parroted, nibbling at his chin and jaw.

"Then we'll see." Billy didn't know what he meant by that. It was all a bit too much when he had so much other shit to think about. Dom's mouth was doing fantastic things to his earlobe, and the rational part brain was very quickly being shorted out.

"Dom, you need to go," Billy murmured, eventually planting a hand on his chest and pushing him firmly away again. He smiled stupidly, keenly aware of the feel of Dom's warmth beneath the fabric of the shirt, _his own shirt_ , ferchrissakes. Dom merely pressed back in. Billy pushed harder against him. "I need you to go. Please."

"Okay, just..." Dom murmured with a sigh, pulled his hands from his chest and held them, closing the distance to bring their foreheads together. "If I give you the week, I just want to know that... this isn't all there is."

"What do you mean?" Billy muttered, trying to resist the pull of Dom's lips so close.

"That you... that we aren't just having a one-off."

"Huh?" Billy pulled back to look at him fully.

Dom sighed in frustration, his words quiet and uncharacteristically wary. "You said before, the first time, 'it doesn't mean anything'. 'It doesn't have to mean anything'. That's what you said."

Billy sighed, "Does it have to?"

Dom blinked at him, the look on his face possibly the most open and honest he'd ever given him. His meaning was painfully clear.

"Dom," Billy shook his head, "I need... I don't have room in my head for this right now. I have to think. Maybe it does, but I can't promise—"

His words were smashed by Dom's mouth, his warm, amazing lips and tongue, pulling a whimper from somewhere deep in Billy's stomach and making his knees weak. When Dom pulled back, he looked both pleased and somehow uncertain. "Remember that, if you get to thinking too much," he whispered. Letting go, he tugged on his jacket and grabbed his waistcoat and tie, pausing at Billy's door to look back, eyes wide and sincere. "Good luck with your proposal."

Billy nodded hazely, then grabbed the moleskine from the coffee table and held it out. "Keep it," Dom said, gesturing with the clothes in his hand and a smile. "I'll start another one." And then he was gone.


	17. Chapter 17

"So is he coming?" Orli asked again.

"He said he was, will you relax?" Dom replied, fidgeting himself, his eyes constantly darting to the door of the pub.

True to his word, he had left Billy alone for the entire final week of school. Billy didn't attend Mort's last couple of classes, and Dom hadn't even seen him in passing anywhere on campus, so it had been doubly hard not to pick up the phone or drop into Morton's unannounced. He had driven past Billy's house on a whim on Wednesday evening, dying to know how the proposal had gone, but ultimately talked himself out of going to the door and breaking his promise to give Billy the time he'd asked for.

Elijah dropped back into his seat at their booth, looking sheepish after a clearly unsuccessful pass at a cute girl in a nearby table with her friends.

"Aww, c'mere," Orli reeled him in for a hug, "It's okay, me and Dommie will give you snuggles. Or at least I will."

Lij fought off Orlando's long limbs with unnecessary fierceness, "Fucking get off!" 

"That was the idea," Dom laughed as Elijah shoved Orli nearly off the seat and downed the rest of his beer to hide his blush.

The pair of them had given him so much hell when he'd finally come back to the flat after the date last Sunday afternoon, Orlando especially begging for sordid details, to which Dom had only smiled and left the rest to his imagination. But by Tuesday morning, the perceptive fucker had asked why he was still even sleeping at home if the date had gone so well, and had annoyed the truth out of him about Billy's telling him to back off. Granted, it was under the guise of Billy's end-of-term workload, but even Orlando could guess there could be more under it than that. _Man, you really are arse-over-tits_ , he'd said incredulously, _Waiting for him? You've never waited for anyone in your life._

Dom supposed it was true. Elijah being a case in point, sulking into his empty pint and cutting glances back at the girl as she and her entourage left the bar. Lij still had years of sorting himself out to do, but Dom likely wouldn't be there for him when he did. He was just never that patient, and anyway his feelings for Elijah had long since shifted to platonic. But a week spent waiting for Billy was an exercise in willpower. Dom had finally called him early in the afternoon to suggest they meet at this pub for a celebratory drink, but he hadn't even been sure Billy would answer the phone, let alone agree to come out. The conversation had been short and awkward, so when he walked through the door, Dom almost couldn't contain the gasp from his throat, or the jolt through his heart.

"Billy!"

At his shout over the pub noise, Billy's eyes found their table and lit in recognition. He looked different somehow, and as he wove his way over through the crowd, Dom tried to figure out what it was. He still looked more or less like his old frayed self, hands tucked in the pockets of his denims (which he seemed to favor over khakis now), but still with that tweed blazer over one of his argyll sweater vests, and the glasses. His face hadn't seen a razor in a couple of days, and the enormous rucksack of books was of course missing, allowing him to stand up and square his shoulders.

Dom stood as he approached them, wanting immediately to hug, but held back. What if Billy didn't want that in front of the guys? What if he'd changed his mind about any of this entirely?

"Hi," he offered lamely.

"Hey," Billy's eyes flickered over the three of them, nodding in greeting and even shaking Orlando's offered hand, though Dom guiltily recognized that old doubt and distrust in his eyes as he scooted back into the booth and Billy sat beside him. He purposely hadn't mentioned on the phone that Lij and Orli would be along as well.

Once settled, Dom grabbed the tumbler of whiskey he'd procured early on in the evening, setting it grandly in front of him.

"Thanks," Billy smiled and took a sip, letting it roll over his tongue before he swallowed it and groaned. "Shite, that's good."

"I asked for their top shelf," Dom grinned.

"So, Dr. Boyd," Orlando started, throwing his dazzling grin out across the table, "How'd it go?"

Billy laughed lowly down at his glass, fingers tracing the designs etched into it. "Don't get ahead of yourself, 'm not a doctor yet."

"Pffft," Dom tsked, palming Billy's thigh under the table. "Like you don't have it in the bag. Really, how was it?"

Billy looked long at him, before darting looks at Lij and Orli, both looking politely curious as well, "It was... ehm. Terrifying," He smiling shyly, taking another sip from his glass. "But good."

"So you passed?" Elijah asked.

Billy eyed him carefully. "I won't get their formal approval till next week. There were some things they thought I should change... I don't know," he shrugged, shaking his head, "Professor Mort said it went well, but..."

"That means you're a shoe-in," Dom decided, draping his arm across the top of the booth behind Billy's shoulders. It got his fingers right in range of the angle of Billy's shoulder and neck, letting them rest there. He could see Billy inhale visibly, eyes flicking in his direction again, but he didn't throw it off. "Not necessarily," he muttered.

"Oh come on," Elijah retorted, "Everyone knows you know fucking everything."

Billy stiffened, and Dom recognized the fight surfacing. He squeezed Billy's shoulder even as he landed a stiff kick to Elijah's shin under the table.

"Ow, motherfucker!" Elijah scowled at him, then got the message. "I meant, like... why would they have you teaching us if you don't know your shit? So why _wouldn't_ they approve your thing, I guess?"

Billy relaxed, shaking his head at Elijah the way he often did whenever Dom said something naive, "I only taught your class because it was a requirement of the program. One that is thankfully over." He took another sip, the hand curled around that precious glass not letting go as one finger pointed at Elijah. "Whether or not my topic goes through has nothing to do with that, aside from Vig giving me a decent review."

"Mort likes you, I don't know why he wouldn't," Dom commented.

"Aye, well," Billy darted looks at all of them, "There were days when I had a hard time handling certain... problematic students."

"I dunno, I heard you handled one pretty well at the weekend," Orli dropped with a wicked grin.

Dom went to kick him under the table as well, but Orlando dodged and he got Elijah again. 

"Ow, asshole!"

A flush had crawled across Billy's cheeks as he sat there uncomfortably staring down his glass, and Dom squeezed his shoulder again while grinning at Orli, "You didn't hear a thing from me."

"'Cause I didn't have to, man," Orlando snickered, "You came home looking all loose and fucked out, hickies on your neck—"

"Dude," Elijah shoved at him, "No one needs to hear that shit."

"I don't think Dom's been so on edge since he was pledging," Orli continued. "You must be an animal in the sack. He's been pining around our flat ever since, looking like a lovesick puppy, drawing pictures... and he's got your face down almost as well as my arse."

Billy downed the rest of his scotch in one swallow, beet red in the face, and Dom shot Orli a warning look, saying, "You know, I haven't seen Jules around lately, Orli, how's that working out for you?" It was a low blow, but it threw Orli off his game. Dom was well aware Orli and his girl had been on the rocks; this was the traditional time for college break-ups, after all. He signaled their waiter for a round of refills.

In the silence that followed, Billy kept his gaze fixed on his paper coaster, peeling the layers apart at the corner. Dom cleared his throat. "Fuck it, everything he just said is true," he proclaimed sheepishly, scooting closer so they were pressed together. Even though Billy's eyes didn't leave his beermat, the corners of his mouth had turned up in a badly fought smile, the tips of his ears going bright red. Orlando belted out a triumphant giggle, reaching across the table to slap Billy's shoulder jovially. "Don't be embarrassed, mate, there have been rumours around campus for ages."

"There have?" Dom and Billy asked in unison. Billy looked somewhat mortified.

"Yeah, man," Orlando laughed, "You two in the library all semester long, walking around together, driving around together. It's just weird. People get chatty. Especially given Dom's track record. Everyone knows when Dom sets his sights on a guy something's gonna go down. It's just you aren't the sort of guy that usually happens with."

Dom laughed, pushing his hand up into Billy's hair and leaning closer, "He's implying you're not my type."

"You're not my type either," Billy deadpanned, "You annoy the shite out of me."

"And usually he gets punched," Orlando added.

"I've thought about punching him, actually, on several occasions," Billy informed them.

Dom tightened his arm around Billy's neck in a mock headlock, tugging him that much closer, leaving it draped there as he leaned close to his ear, "But you didn't."

Billy looked back at him, his eyes darting down to Dom's mouth involuntarily as he muttered, "No."

"Oh God, no kissing! Nothing I can't unsee, okay," Elijah covered his eyes, but then peeked through his fingers, laughing, "Are you even allowed to date students?"

"Are we dating?" Dom asked, both rhetorically and not, watching Billy's eyes.

Billy finally looked back across at Elijah's query, shrugging his shoulders as he leaned back under Dom's arm. "Well, technically, I'm not a teacher. And you lot aren't technically students any longer, eh?" Dom couldn't help but notice how that answer dodged his question.

"A-fucking-men," Orlando lifted his fresh beer as their new drinks arrived. "To not being slaves to academia!"

They lifted their glasses to clink, all but Billy who still held his new scotch firmly on the table, shaking his head, "Christ, I dunno if I can drink to that, not yet."

"You're All But Diss now," Dom told him, "You can."

"'S going to jinx something, I bet," Billy smirked, but hesitantly lifted the tumbler and touched their glasses before taking a small swallow, followed by a huge sigh, "I've been in uni so long I don't know how else to be."

"Shit, how old are you anyway?" Elijah asked loudly.

"Old. Like dirt," Billy joked, giving him a stern look, "I'm thirty-two."

Elijah looked confused, "That doesn't make sense. That's like you've been in college for fifteen years."

Shaking his head, Billy looked at him sideways, "Some people don't get to go straight into uni from school, Elijah. Some don't get into the colleges they want right out of the gate. And not everyone's da knows a guy who knows a guy to bump you up the wait-list." Elijah narrowed his eyes and sulked, but didn't dispute the subtle accusation under that statement.

"How long have you been here? In Boston?" Orli asked.

Billy screwed up his face in thought. "Five years? Around that."

"But isn't the grad program only three?"

"Yeah," Billy scrubbed at his stubbly chin idly before realizing they were all waiting for him to elaborate. "Last semester wasn't the only time I've had to put things on hold." He took another swallow of his whiskey, "My second year here, there was some shite wrong with my student visa, and by the time they fixed it, it was weeks into term already, would've arsed up my GPA no matter what. Ended up just writing the whole thing off, all I did was work that spring and summer. Because my work papers were fine, you know, couldn't the two visa offices take a fucking look at each other's paperwork?" Billy looked temporarily recharged by this mishap before he settled back again with a shrug, "Made some money, anyway. But then I spent it all on the plane ticket home this fall."

"You mean you should have finished last spring?" Dom asked, a little surprised. 

Billy nodded, eying him thoughtfully afterward. "What."

"Nothing, just..." Dom shrugged, "I wouldn't have gotten to know you at all, if you did."

"Aye, well," Billy nodded, "Could've saved me another year of torment from you lot."

"And miss out on all the fun we had?" Orli gestured widely. "Dead guys in baths and all?"

Billy shook his head with a smirk, turning his whiskey glass and watching the sparkle. "I hope the ghosts of Marat and David both haunt you forever, Bloom. I did last semester and I still do."

"Aww," Orlando took that in stride, "Come on, mate, I didn't mean anything by it, it was only a laugh."

"For you it was," Billy lifted his chin and his eyebrows, "A lot of people died leading up to that painting. It represented the deaths of thousands, not just the murder of one Revolutionary journalist. But you're smart, yeah, so I know you knew that already, and yet you chose to play the edjit on the day when I was being reviewed by the grad committee in your class, plus I had found out just that morning that my gran had died and I had to figure out what the fuck to do about it. So, you know, it might have been a great laugh for you, but not for me."

Berated, Orlando sank down in his seat, his eyebrows pinched in contrition. "Shut down!" Elijah bellowed in his ear, becoming steadily louder as he drank and sloshing his beer across to thump Billy's glass. Dom rumbled a laugh at a thoroughly shamed Orli, squeezing Billy's shoulder in solidarity.

"Shite, mate, I'm sorry," Orlando apologized, "I feel like a right prick now."

"You are a prick," Elijah said, "Fuck, we're all pricks. Someone ought to tell us more often."

"You're all pricks," Billy obliged, then looked at Dom. "You too."

"Why am I still—"

"You didn't call me. 'S proper etiquette to call the girl a day or so after a date, you know." Billy crossed his arms primly, "Let her know you're still interested. I sat up nights, crying into my pillow."

"You told me to fuck off!" Dom exclaimed, and Lij and Orli were both having fits across the table.

Elijah giggled into his beer. "Why didn't we give him whiskey earlier?"

"Would've made your class a helluva lot more tolerable," Billy lifted his glass to that, but shook his head. "Still would've done nothing for your marks, though. I can't be bought."

"Except by Dom, apparently," Orlando pointed out. "I wonder what his grade in HAA will be."

Billy shook his head, "I only mark your homework, mate, the rest is up to Vig."

"I'll have you know I've never managed to seduce Prof Mort," Dom told them indignantly. "Not once."

"Me neither," Billy commented, "Not for lack of imagining."

"Right?" Dom smiled at him, "I dreamt of cowboy chaps for months."

"Hey," Elijah interjected, not following their conversation, "We should invite him to the party. We're having a party."

"Yeah!" Orli said. "The night after graduation."

Billy hesitated, and Dom backed him up, "Nah, guys, he wouldn't want to, not with that crowd."

"Why not?" Orlando asked.

Dom looked at Billy, gauging his interest. "Probably have a lot of the frat guys there, some of the sorority girls, other art school people." Truthfully, he'd love to have Billy at their last party. Aside from his roommates, he hadn't really been friends with most of that crowd lately, and their shindigs of late had been less enjoyable for it. "Just a lot of people drinking and acting stupid, really."

"As opposed to any other college get-together," Billy teased, looking to Dom. "Ehm, I suppose I could put in an appearance."

"Are you going to the ceremony?" Elijah asked.

"Yeah, do you graduate too?" Orlando wondered, "Or is it different for you?"

"Ehm," Billy tapped his fingers on his glass, "I can walk just because I finished my coursework, but I don't really have to." He darted his eyes Dom's way again. "But I'll be there, yeah."

"That'd be great," Dom murmured half-heartedly. The approach of graduation was eating at him, knowing his parents were coming out, and knowing his father surely had all sorts of plans for his future that he had absolutely no say in. The things Billy had said on their date about doing what _he_ wanted pounded in his head at night as the days counted down.

Billy glanced down at his watch after he finished off his second glass, shifting in his seat, "Well, I ought to go if I'm to catch the last bus back up to campus."

"You sure?" Dom asked, if only to delay him. His hand couldn't stop stroking at the back of Billy's neck.

"No, stay." Surprisingly, this came from Elijah, "Dom can drive you back. He's only had a couple of beers."

"No, I should go. But I'll see you at graduation," he stood, patting the back of his jeans for his wallet, to which Dom shook his head. "Thanks for the drinks. It was good to, ah..." he shifted his feet awkwardly, offering his hand to Orlando and Elijah again, "...make amends, I guess."

"Likewise," Orlando grinned widely, "You're alright, Bill."

"Yeah," Elijah shook his hand as well.

"See you later," he said, eyes lingering on Dom.

"Bye," he replied softly, arm still resting in Billy's residual warmth on the back of the booth.

Billy hesitated, then turned and wove his way out, leaving Dom sitting and picking at the pieces of shredded beermat on the table, trying not to turn and watch him go, until Orli kicked him hard under the table.

"Ow!"

"Christ, you're fucking hopeless," Orli lifted his eyebrows, and Elijah grinned drunkenly over his beer. "Go after him, you fuckwit. He wants you to."

"But..." Dom protested haplessly.

"Go!" they yelled together.

Outside his breath puffed in the night, trying to figure out which direction the nearest bus stop was in, and saw Billy's back heading to the right, down the shimmering sidewalk near where Dom's car was parked on the curb.

"Bills, hang on," Dom called after him, trotting to catch him up.

Billy stopped and turned, but with a lingering smile. "Hey."

"Hey," Dom breathed, casting about for something more to say, something to keep this going. "Are you sure you don't want that ride?" He pointed to his car, just one spot away.

"No, but ehm... thanks anyway," Billy murmured around his smile.

"Sure?" Dom took a step closer, smiling as he lifted his brows in patented hope.

Billy breathed a laughing exhale, looking down at his hush puppies scraping the wet concrete. "I've got work tomorrow, Dom. And I'm _not_ calling in sick again," he added.

Dom bit his lip guiltily, but then jogged over to his car on a whim. "C'mere. I have something for you."

He opened the door and pulled out his old navy peacoat from the back seat, holding it out to him, "You haven't got a proper coat, and I don't wear this one anymore."

"Dom, you don't have to—"

"I want you to have it," Dom insisted, moving closer to push the woolen material into his hands. "All you have is that old blazer, and I'm tired of seeing you shivering all the time. It's been sat in my back seat since I got the one I'm wearing."

Billy arched a brow out him, tentatively taking the thick wool in his hands, glancing around at the streets around them, wet from the spring rain. "It's nearly May, I won't even need it much longer." He caught sight of the LL Bean label inside, "Dom this is a two hundred dollar coat, I can't—"

"One that I don't need," Dom insisted, "Put it on. It's fine, Bills, you got it secondhand, yeah?"

Dom took it back, holding it spread open for him and waiting until he relented and let Dom slip it over his arms, tugging the sleeves of the blazer down under the thicker sleeves. "Looks good on you," he grinned, doing the buttons.

"It's a bit tight in the shoulders," Billy offered, another inept attempt at protest, despite the fact that the coat was worlds warmer than just his blazer.

"Yeah, well. I haven't got these amazing guns," Dom squeezed his biceps and shoulders. "You only get that carting forty pounds of books on your back getting an Art History doctorate."

Billy gave that half a grin, fixing his eyes on the zipper of Dom's own coat closed over the graphic tee he wore. Dom's hands fussed at the lapels, biting his lip at their closeness, at that bubble around them shrinking to the absurd tunnel vision he got with Billy.

"You never answered my question," he murmured low in his throat, his hands slipping beneath the peacoat's sleeves to Billy's sides.

"What question?"

"Are we dating?" Dom whispered, tilting his head close to Billy's ear.

Billy exhaled in amusement, even as Dom crowded him up against the side of the car. "Dom..."

"Are we?" he repeated, feeling Billy's fingers tighten on his collar and the tips of their noses touch, and tipped the crucial inch onto his mouth. Billy fairly sighed against his lips as they opened, puffs of mist surrounding their faces in the heat between them. When Dom moved to mouth at his prickly gorgeous jaw, he heard the squeak and hiss of bus air-brakes, and Billy's inhale as he realized that was his ride.

"I've got to go," Billy pushed him back, but grabbed his neck and kissed him hard before he jogged away to the bus' waiting doors.

"Are we?" Dom called after him. Billy paused, his face illuminated by the bus interior as he dug in his pocket for his pass, looking back at Dom and darting his tongue over his lips, his eyebrows pinching in the center before he boarded and disappeared.

Dom huffed in frustration, turning to lean his back against his car as the bus pulled off into the damp night. At the clearing of a throat, he looked back in the direction of the pub to find his mates lingering several yards down, and other people he'd not even cared to see milling around this busy night spot. Orlando grinned, tonguing a toothpick between his teeth while Elijah sucked down a Parliament, looking scandalized and turned on and generally as conflicted as he ever was, pretending like he hadn't seen anything.

"What are you looking at?" Dom scowled, pulling out his keys again.

"Nothing," Orlando said brightly, "Just a couple of lovebirds macking in the middle of the street."

"Whatever," Dom muttered.

"Dommie and Dr. Boyd sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

"In the car, children," Dom yanked the door open, shoving the passenger's seat forward to shove Orlando and his stupid singing into the back seat. He took Elijah's cigarette from between his teeth and dropped it hissing in wet puddle at his feet, then picked it up to pitch toward a nearby bin, ushering Elijah into the car. "Time for bed."

"And wanking," Orlando sing-songed.

Dom shut the door and walked around to the driver's side, muttering to himself, "Lots of that all around."


	18. Chapter 18

The morning sun tentatively warmed Harvard Yard—transformed from its usual peace with chairs, rippling banners, and thousands of people—through the arduous process of seating the entire university's faculty, alumni, graduating students with their families patiently (or perhaps impatiently) waiting. The grass was green and damp beneath their feet as each of the university's schools slowly marched in. Nearly two hours had already past just getting 32,000 people seated, and Dom had long since decided _Pomp and Circumstance_ could go to hell.

He'd spent most of the morning before the ceremony trying to direct his parents' somewhere to park, since they'd adamantly ignored his repeated insistence that parking anywhere within a five mile radius of the school on Commencement Day would be a nightmare, they'd still insisted on taking the rental car. Elijah was much in the same boat with his own family. Their little trio was all split up anyhow, waiting in alphabetical formation on the outskirts of the Yard and waiting their turn to be guided in. Dom had yet to see Billy in this sea of black and red gowns.

He pulled out his phone as the Arts group was finally called to stand and begin slowly shuffling into place. One of the ushers guiding them where to go eyeballed him scathingly, since during rehearsal they'd been strongly reminded that mobiles were highly frowned upon at an ivy league school commencement (a rule clearly no student gave a fuck about, as most were texting or taking video). _Are you here?_ he sent off to Billy's number. He hardly expected a reply, given that Billy's mobile was prepaid and every text cost him money.

But a minute later a reply chimed back, _Am I where?_

_Standing around like a decorated ant._

Another two minutes passed as their procession inched forward, and it occurred to Dom that Billy was way ahead of him alphabetically and already in the Tercentenary Theater, with eyes watching. But then his phone chimed back, _Hooded and tammed._

Dom grinned and sent back, _sexy_. He gripped his phone, smoothing his own black undergrad robes and adjusting his mortarboard, trying to picture Billy in his doctoral red garb. There really wasn't much sexy about caps and gowns, but the thought of Billy with the fancy traditional hood and a suit beneath pushed him through the long, boring march to his seat.

After the seating, speeches, and the long handing out of degrees slowly drew to a close with the disappearance of the timid sun, a rain began gently drizzling down as people cleared out of the Yard at a much faster pace than they came in. Dom had only caught a brief glance of Billy from seemingly half a mile away as he'd walked up to collect his degree with the rest of the school, the only part of this whole ordeal that had gone by far too quickly. Once again, he had to locate his parents, eat quickly at the luncheons to settle his growling stomach and then direct them to the building where the School of Fine Arts and Architecture's diploma ceremony would be held, for a second round of sitting on a hard chair for another hour or two before walking up to get fancy piece of paper.

The Piper Auditorium in Gund Hall was a considerably smaller venue than the massive affair of Morning Exercises, but Dom had spent plenty of time in this building for his Design and Photography courses, so it also felt much less formal. Once seated in his row in the middle of his class, he spotted Billy at one end of the front row with the two other doctoral candidates as the Art school faculty presented their department speeches and accolades. Even Prof Mort, up on stage in his own red robes and cowboy boots beneath couldn't manage not to look a bit bored.

"... and now, to address our graduating class is a published author in the field of Art History, with his Associate's degree from City of Glasgow College, his Bachelor's from Glasgow University, this morning the recipient of a Graduate degree awarded Summa Cum Laud, and very soon to be Doctor of Art History, your fellow student and graduate, Billy Boyd."

Dom's head had come up at the first mention of Glasgow, fastening his eyes to the back of Billy's head beneath his silly velvet tam o'shanter. The bastard hadn't said a thing about giving a speech to their class, had been pretty mum about anything relating to the ceremony, in fact. Hell, he hadn't even been at the rehearsal.

As Billy made his way up to the podium, Dom clapped perhaps a bit louder than the rest of the students around him, grinning to finally see him properly in the flesh, or rather the cherry red robes and draped hood. 

"Hello," Billy voice rang in the microphone with feedback, and he leaned away from it with a wince. "Sorry. I'll try not to be so Scottish." A vague wave of laughter went through the crowd. "And thank you, Professor Candelwahl, for the... ehm, embellished intro. Makes me feel like the last twelve years or so of higher education were worth it."

The crowd laughed again as he unfolded the papers he'd brought. He smoothed both sheets out on the podium and cleared his throat, eyes wandering over the auditorium and left to right were families were seated. Dom grinned as he remembered how much Billy seemed to dislike addressing a class, and though the Art and Design school was quite small by comparison to giving a speech the full 32,000 strong outside, speaking to such an assembly as this might still be a bit daunting. Or perhaps he only hated it when certain students were doing their level best to disrupt and annoy him. Perhaps he didn't mind it so much if he secretly liked said students.

Among the quiet murmuring and the squeaking of chairs, Dom gave a very loud, exaggerated sneeze, losing his mortarboard in the process. He bent to retrieve it from between his shoes, hearing giggles around him as he reset it on his head with his patented shit-eating grin. He could hear Elijah's distinctive snickering from the back tiers, but the act had the effect he'd wanted: Billy had spotted him among the sea of nearly identical black robes and hats. He reshuffled his papers once again, narrowing his eyes, almost in a dare. Dom merely tamped his hat down and pulled his ears comically out of its edges, knowing full well how ridiculous it made him look. He widened his eyes, going for a look of complete innocence, listening with rapt attention. Billy cleared his throat again behind a smirk, dropping his eyes to his papers and began: 

"Hundreds of years ago, students of art would study under the great masters of their craft. They sometimes left their homes as young as ten to spend much of their lives in the company of Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio, da Vinci.

"Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci is one of my favorite artists who has ever lived. Maybe a few of yours as well, eh? A man who, in sixty-seven years of life, was not only painter, sculptor and an architect, but a mathematician, an inventor, a musician, a writer, an engineer... his knowledge and talents spanned nearly all of what we consider the Fine Arts, Mathematics, Medicine, Science and more.

"Arguably, Leonardo da Vinci accomplished more in his lifetime than most people could ever dream of. But it was his alleged dying words that have intrigued me the most." Billy raised a finger at the somewhat uncomfortable silence, "Not to be so morbid as to equate this occasion to the death of a master, but... more to what has come from his influence, since after all, each of us only has the time we're given to make our mark on the world.

"It's said that Leonardo died on a stormy night, at the chateau of his patron King Francois I, and in the presence of his two lifelong and most beloved students, Salaí and Francesco Melzi. That night the rain pounded down on France and all the rest of Europe." Billy shifted his eyes around the auditorium, briefly lighting again on Dom in the center. "I might be making this rainstorm up, but stick with me." The audience gave him another confused laugh as he continued, "I'm not making this part up, though. It is documented that Leonardo's final spoken words were, _'I have offended God and Mankind because my work did not achieve the quality it should have.'_ "

Billy gave a long pause to allow that statement to punch, looking out across the heads of the students. "There are various other translations of the quote from the Italian, of course, but hits you, doesn't it? It strikes at your heart to know a man who—to this day is on most top ten lists of the most influential human beings to have ever lived—wasn't satisfied with what he did. Some people might roll their eyes at that, say he was being facetious. And maybe he was," Billy shrugged as another titter of laughter went around the auditorium.

Then Billy shook his head with a smile. "I don't believe that. To me, this was a man who embraced what art truly is, at its simplest form. To influence. To affect. To challenge. And perhaps he didn't even realize his own influence on the world; how many of us do? It's difficult to see past your own self-criticisms and prejudices to realize that someone else might see a grand work of art, or an idea that might change everything." Billy's eyes held on Dom's for a moment, and his breath caught at what other implications could be meant in that statement, remembering the way Billy had looked at his own work, or how he'd looked at him on certain occasions.

"Remember that the measure of each artist's success is not necessarily by his or her own action, but the action itself is that of a raindrop in a still pond: it affects and influences everything around it. However dissatisfied Leonardo may have been, the droplets he made are still rippling, still affecting all of us, more than five hundred years later. What he and every other artist in the world and across history has done is to provide you all with new challenges to accept, new ideas to try, new raindrops to make new ripples. This is what shapes our future.

"From the years I have spent here among you, and hopefully taught a few of you about how art has arrived at our current era, I have watched you continue to make strides and lay down a new history. Now you graduate from a school that is renowned around the world, because you have worked and put forth years of your time and effort to hone your crafts and improve your knowledge to receive this degree. Whether you take photographs, or design buildings, or capture the soul of a person with a few strokes of your pen," Billy's eyes lit once again on Dom's face, making his heart give a funny wobble as he went on, "something occurs to me.... You are all the students of the grand masters. You are the up and coming da Vinci's of the world. And you will continue to influence, and to affect, and to challenge, because your hearts will always yearn, the way Leonardo's did, to do ever more. So, my fellow graduates of Harvard University, by all means... make it rain."

At Dom's first clap, the rest of the students and audience joined as well, a feeling of excitement rushing through the crowd. Billy looked mildly thrilled by it as he glanced around at students waving their hats, spotting Dom in the middle again and smiling before he shuffled back to his place.

 

Outside, the campus was dripping and chilly, but the drizzle had stopped. Dom spotted and jogged quickly across the grass to catch Billy, walking alone amongst family groups and grads taking photos and hugging, with his robe unzipped to the suit and tie beneath, tam o'shanter and degree folio tucked under one arm as he strode along with both his hands in his pockets.

"Bills!" he called, halting him so he could catch up, "Hey!"

"Hey," Billy responded, with an odd look on his face.

"Pretty speech," Dom offered, dropping his brow somewhat accusingly, "You didn't tell me about that."

Billy shrugged, scrubbing at his hair as a drop fell on him from the leaves above. "Wasn't a big deal. Viggo asked me to."

Dom shuffled closer, sliding Billy's tie through his fingers. "And yet it rained."

Billy spontaneously smiled, looking about at the damp around them. "It did that, eh?" He pocketed his hands again as his eyes came back, flicking down and back up Dom's own dark suit beneath his black gown. The green campus reflected back in them, making them even more intense, and oddly sad. "Coincidence. I didn't even watch the weather report."

"I loved it," Dom murmured, tugging Billy's tie lightly, even as he heard his mother calling his name from behind. He gritted his teeth momentarily, muttering an explanation, "My parents."

Billy nodded, eyes shifting over Dom's shoulder, "I should go."

"Wait, just a second."

"Dom..."

"Dominic," his mum's voice was quiet close behind now, "Why do you still dart off like you're all of eight-years-old... Oh, hello. You're the Scottish lad that gave that wonderful speech, aren't you?"

Billy eyebrows collected nervously, nodding, "Aye, I suppose I was." 

Dom turned to his parents, the cuffs of his father's suit trousers damp and his mother's heels splattered from the grass. "Mum, Dad, this is Billy."

"Billy, how lovely," his mother greeted as Billy shook her hand. "I don't think Dom's mentioned you before."

"Haven't known him that long," Billy lied with a shrug.

"A PhD," Dom's father noted as they also shook hands. "I imagine your family is very proud of you, young man."

"Ah, yeah," Billy scrubbed at the back of his hair awkwardly. "Not finished quite yet, though."

"I give him six months, tops," another very welcome voice joined them as Prof Mort strode up and gripped the pair of them by shoulders and gave them a good shake. "Billy's probably my hardest-working student. Dom—maybe the smartest."

"Smart-arsed, more like," Dom's dad said.

"That too," Viggo grinned, giving Dom a harder shake and offering his own hand. "Viggo Mortensen."

"Ah, Dom's advisor, the cowboy!" Austin exclaimed. "I've heard a lot about you!"

"Oh, we must have a picture, everyone scoot together," Dom's mother pulled her camera out of her purse.

"Erm, I'll just..." Billy started to step away, but Viggo pulled him firmly back.

"No, no, stand there together, that's it," she insisted on snapping several shots with Viggo smiling behind them.

"Let me ask you, Professor," Austin tugged Viggo aside after she was finished, "Your opinions regarding graduate schools in the states, especially in Architecture..."

BIlly was attempting to skitter off unnoticed again, but Dom caught him up around the trunk of the big oak, "Wait, Bills." He paused as he glanced back around at his dad, chewing Viggo's ear off. "Christ, he's relentless," he complained sourly, "I get to listen to that all night."

Billy did listen for a moment, as Viggo politely nodded and offered vague words that didn't lean one way or another. "How long are they in town for?" he asked.

"Just until tomorrow, thankfully. I've got to take them out for dinner later," Dom lamented, looking back at him imploringly, "Come with me."

Billy's eyes went wide, "No."

"Please?"

"Dom, _no_ ," he repeated, as if the idea was horrifying. "I can't."

"Please, Bills."

"I really can't, Dom," Billy insisted, "I've got work tonight, at Morton's."

Dom exhaled sadly, then lifted his eyes to meet Billy's at a sudden obvious idea, to which Billy quickly responded, "Don't you dare. We're probably booked out tonight anyhow."

Sliding his teeth over his bottom lip, Dom tried a sweet smile, dropping his fingers to Billy's wrist, hidden by their big sleeves, "I just want to see you. It's been ages."

A flash of Billy's teeth returned it as he whispered back, "It's been a week."

"More than a week since I _really_ saw you," Dom swiftly replied, to which Billy shushed quietly but with an impish grin, flicking his eyes from his shoes to Dom's mum over his shoulder, taking photos of the buildings and people milling about.

"I'll see you at your party tomorrow night, remember?"

Dom lit up brightly, "You'll come?"

"I said I would, didn't I?" Billy nodded, smiling over Dom's shoulder again, "Your mum's taking pictures of us." Dom turned just as she snapped a shot and then picked her way through the wet grass over to them again. "'S where you got the photo-bug from, hmm?"

"Billy, why don't you and your parents come with us to dinner? " she asked, "It'd be no trouble at all."

"I'm afraid I can't, M'um," Billy gathered his eyebrows apologetically. "I've work tonight."

"Oh, but aren't you spending time with your family?"

"They obviously aren't here, Mum," Dom said flatly. He'd had quite enough of his parents' assumptions after this morning.

"Don't be sassy, Dominic," she shot back. "I certainly don't mean to pry, I only assumed—"

"No worries," Billy shifted his feet. "'S not a big deal. I've got to go anyway."

"Well, congratulations, anyway. It was a wonderful speech," she offered politely, touching his arm.

Billy muttered his thanks and turned, prompting Dom to point his mum at the banners decorating the façade of Widener to distract her while he trotted off to catch Billy up again.

"Hey," he paused, trying to read that odd look on Billy's face. "Sorry about that. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Billy shook his head, contradicting with his answer as he paused, looking about at other grads with their families. "This is all just... a bit weird, you know?"

Dom nodded, moving closer instinctively as Billy shook his head again. "Feels like a hundred years since I did this last, and that time..." he stopped, looking at his shoes and shrugged, but Dom understood. That time, it was likely that at least his sister and his gran had been there to see it, and the lack was sinking in hard now.

He cast about, trying to find something to make it feel better, "I saw you get your PhD today. And I put you through hell to get it, eh?"

Billy breathed a laugh, waving the folio in the air between them. "You did that."

"DR. BOYD," bellowed Orlando from nearby, with Elijah trailing behind as he ran up to them, "Give me this thing, here—" he grabbed Billy's tam and tugged it down to his eyebrows onto his his own head, ridiculously with the tassel dangling in front of his nose as he shoved his own mortarboard haphazardly onto Billy's head. "We fucking graduated, man!"

"Yeah, bitches!" Elijah roared, hands punching in the air, and Orlando looped two long arms around both Dom's and Billy's necks. Their exuberance seemed to perk Billy up, even as Orlando planted a big wet kiss on his cheek, getting a dark look from Dom and returning with a sly grin. "Aw, my bad, you two lovebirds were having a moment, yeah? Here," He removed himself from between them, knocking their heads together with his arms still encircling them, "Commence with kissy-wissies."

"Dude," Elijah shushed with giggles, standing a bit apart from them and glanced around. Dom could hear his mum's camera snapping away.

"Relax, Lij," Orli grabbed him by the collar and knuckled his head, "If your dad sees you gaying it up he can deal, because you just GRADUATED FROM HARVARD! I can't wait to celebrate! Billy, are you coming to the party?"

"Yeah, I'll come," Billy replied, looking at Dom again. Grinning, Dom put a hand around his neck and squeezed, leaning close to drop his voice under his mates' raucousness, "Better?"

"Yeah," Billy took to deep breath, biting his lip. "Still got to go, though. Have to catch a bus."

"Right," Dom remembered with a sigh of his own, with a last squeeze to his neck, he tugged him close to press a chaste kiss to his mouth. "See you at the party, then."

Billy exhaled, a flush crawling over his cheeks at Dom's overt affection. "See you."

He watched him stride away, returning to his parents' as Orlando and Elijah had got roped into photos with Viggo and Dom's mother.

"Come on, Dom, let's have proper photos with your friends," she encouraged.

Orlando piped up, "He's too busy mooning over his boyfriend."

Dom's mum gasped, looking after Billy, and then back at her son, "That lovely young man is your boyfriend, Dominic, why on earth didn't you say so?"

Dom grabbed Orlando in a headlock, pretending to strangle him from behind. He caught Viggo arching an all-knowing eyebrow at him, hiding his blush in his mate's shoulder as Billy disappeared in a flash of bright robes around the corner of Widener.


	19. Chapter 19

Billy stepped off the bus to a crisp, clear night in Dom's neighborhood, walking a block or so to the old brickwork factory from which Dom's building was converted. Even from street level, he could see the bright glow from the highest windows as he found the main entrance and took the stairs to the topmost floor.

Despite what Dom and his friends probably thought, Billy was no stranger to a college party. While he was at GU, he and his friends—back when he'd actually had a circle of friends—were quite well-versed in the pub crawl and partying. Before work and his studies had entirely overtaken his time, he'd spent many a night back then drinking and staying up until dawn, as much as any other twenty-something Scotsman. Certainly not among what might have been Dom's crowd, but his own ragtag group of artists, musicians and other outcasts knew how to enjoy themselves as much as anyone else.

He could hear music muffled through the walls as he approached the door, shaking his head at how the neighbors must feel. He'd made a bit of a point to be late; Dom had told him the party would start at eight and it was now half-nine, and it was obviously already in full swing. He hadn't wanted to be the first to arrive and seem over-eager. In all honesty, he was having second thoughts about knocking on the door at all.

A young woman with a drink in-hand pulled open the door at his knock, one he thankfully didn't recognize, though it wasn't long at all before he saw familiar faces. There were students he'd shared classes with, a few he'd taught in HAA, and some he recognized simply by having passed them in the halls at the same time, day in and day out. Some smiled and said hi, others did a double-take, and still others looked through him with no recognition at all. It didn't make it any less awkward.

Orlando spotted him first, weaving his way through bodies to the kitchen—long arms held high above people's heads with four or five plastic cups cradled between his fingers—brightening when he saw Billy lingering in the entry. 

"Dr. Boyd! Come here, man!" he waved him over, refilling the cups from the keg sitting on the floor in a cooler of ice, and pulling a fresh cup from the top of a stack to fill. "How long have you been here?"

"Just got in," Billy said over the music.

"Just leave your coat on the table," Orli instructed, pointing at the large heaps covering its surface. It appeared to be somewhat organized, with each coat bearing a matching coloured index card pinned to the collar or sleeve with names and addresses written on them, and each haphazard pile assigned a different colour. On the remaining corner of the table was a fishbowl full of more clothes-pins, and stacks of colored cards and a cup of sharpie markers.

"What's all this?" he asked, as he lay his own coat on the orange pile bearing addresses in Mid-Cambridge.

Orli grinned, "Ah, don't worry about that, mate," he answered cryptically, handing the fresh beer to him. Billy tasted it; a lager of some stripe. He tugged at his shirtsleeves self-consciously, adjusting the way they were rolled up to his elbows as he glanced about the place. The sheer number of people here shouldn't be surprising, but it was. This loft was a massive space from what he'd seen the previous time he'd been here, but now it seemed packed with people, some of them still wearing their mortarboards from the ceremony the day before. Above the constant beat of the music was the hubbub of many voices and laughter.

"Where's Dom?" he asked.

Orlando's grin stretched even wider, giving Billy's hair a rough, affectionate scrub, "Can't wait, eh? He's over here." He picked up the cups of beer he'd filled, rims clamped between his fingers again as he turned into the fray and held them up high once again.

Billy tried to smooth his hair back down as he followed. Farther into the flat, as Orlando wove through and dropped beers off to various friends. They passed Elijah manning a fully-equipped DJ's table while a few people danced near the amplifier. A pack of guys stood around the pinball machine, one playing and swearing at it while the rest laughed and drank; still more lounged across the two long sofas in front of the TV, which made pulsing patterns and colors in time to the beat of the music. Even more people lingered along the upper balcony railing where the bedrooms were, with a line waiting outside the bathroom. A few already inebriated guys monkeyed around on the outside of the spiral stair railing.

Dom was found bent over the pool table, lining up and taking what looked like the last shot of a game. It sank, by the way he straightened up, grinning smugly and making a pay-up gesture to his opponent, who grudgingly handed over a stack of bills. 

"Dominic!" Orlando shouted over the din, hand around Billy's shoulder as he ushered him forward, "The doctor is in!"

Dom turned around as he pocketed the money, face lighting up, "Bills! You made it!" He came forward with arms spread.

"Yeah, bus took longer than I thought," Billy replied, a bit breathlessly as he returned the embrace, keeping it short and matey before he stepped back. He indicated the beer in his hand, almost as an excuse, and took another sip from it as Dom's eyes darted over him.

"You look really good," Dom grinned, switching the pool cue to his other hand to pinch at the loose corner of his collar. 

"Aye well, I knew you liked this vest, so," Billy deadpanned.

"I hate this vest," Dom shot back with a laugh, briefly tugging the vee collar of it in his fingers. 

Billy'd tried something a little different, and as much as it felt bizarre to have his sleeves rolled up, a few buttons undone and the tails of his shirt poking out the bottom of his sweater vest instead of properly tucked in, he'd seen people make it look good, preppy and natural even, though he'd agonized over it in front of the mirror at home more than he cared to admit. No one seemed to be looking at him like he'd dressed in the dark, though, so maybe it was fine.

He cleared his throat, forcing his eyes away from Dom across the heads of the people around them and into his beer. He grasped for something to say, shifting his eyes back to the crowd again, "So, this is the famed Monaghan-Bloom-Wood Party, eh?"

"The very last," Dom's chin went up in challenge, "Impressed?"

It wasn't so much what Dom was wearing that surprised him—dark washed denims with a slim-cut purple button-down instead of his usual screened t-shirts, the sleeves pushed up and wrists full of bangles—but there was something quite strange about his eyes. They seemed to pop and spark dangerously, a hundred times more stormy blue than usual. Billy had no idea what it was, but having that electric gaze on him made his pulse thump in a way he couldn't quash.

He wrinkled his nose after another gulp, trying for nonchalance. "Beer could certainly be better."

Dom tipped his head back, laughing out loud. "Right, then," he said, pushing his pool cue into Billy's free hand, "Let's play a round."

Billy raised an eyebrow with a smile, testing the heft of the cue. "I did tell you I tended bar in college, yeah? With a billiards room?"

"You did," Dom replied, choosing another cue for himself from the rack under the table. "So let's have a _real_ game. All any of these Yanks know how to play is Eight Ball." Circling the table, he discovered the red ball in a pocket, then the yellow in another, holding them up for Billy to see. "And Orlando's shite at English rules." He grinned apologetically at another guy who was clearly waiting for a turn at the table, convincing him it would just be a quickie with a leer in Billy's direction.

Billy chose to pretend he hadn't seen the look, smirking at his shoes as he moved around to the end of the table with Dom. "Stakes?" he asked. He was all too aware of the very short supply of cash in his wallet, the large stack of twenties Dom had recently tucked into his own.

Dom's eyes shifted briefly, biting his lip as he considered, then grinned, "If you win, I'll get you something more interesting to drink than that microbrew."

Billy laughed, downing the rest of the bland beer in a go and finding a nearby end table to set the plastic cup on. Whiskey would be useful; he was going to need less nerves and more liquid courage to make it through the rest of this night as it was. "And if you win?"

Dom had set the balls on the table for the lag, chalking his cue and handing the cube to him with fox eyes. "Your call."

Well, that was just unfair. Billy brushed at the tip of his cue with the chalk, covering it meticulously to stall. But instead of waiting for Billy to answer, Dom leaned down to aim his cueball—the yellow—and asked, "First to ten, then, keep it quick?"

"S'fine," Billy agreed, bending beside him in front of the white cueball. On Dom's count to three, they struck simultaneously. The white ricocheted more favourably than Dom's, who smiled and gestured him to play on.

It didn't take long for the game to be evenly matched, to the point where they agreed to change the rules in the middle and play to twenty points, to the irritation of the kid waiting for the table. Dom was a fair player, but Billy gave him a run for his money. Or whatever else. Billy had a feeling the stakes here were less important than the thinly veiled flirting anyway; he'd get a more interesting drink out of it, at least, regardless of who won.

In the end Billy won the game by two points, and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Dom, for his part, shrugged and accepted his loss all smiles, handing his and Billy's cues off to the waiting party and clapping Billy on the back, making no show of disappointment whatsoever.

"Let's get that drink." He grabbed Billy's hand, pulling him back in the direction of the kitchen. He turned to the cupboards for a real glass, then from the high cupboard over the fridge, pulled down a bottle that was decidedly not to be a part of the evening's mixers.

"Glenmorangie?" Billy raised his eyebrows. "I would have figured you for a Black Label guy." He accepted the glass and Dom's shrugged smile.

"Ah, I like my Scotch a little sweet and surprising," Dom said, turning back to him with a meaningful look that made Billy's nerves spring back up under his skin. Billy took a sip of the whiskey, which is indeed a touch sweet and a little spicy, and good. Billy hadn't had whiskey this good since his early days at that bar.

"Did you eat? Come on, have something," Dom said, pointing out the buffalo wings and sausages, pizza, crisps and veggies with a multitude of dips and other finger foods on the island to tempt him, loading up a small paper plate with wings. Leaning against the counter to nibble at one, he waited for Billy to follow suit. _Might as well_ , he thought, grabbing a plate and a slice of pizza, and earning a smile.

"Everyone's being kind of ridiculous," Dom shook his head, laughing. "Talking about how we all have to go be grown-ups now. I think they're using this as an excuse." He pointed to the guys still hanging from the spiral stair.

"As opposed to the rest of us," Billy shakes his head, plowing through his pizza slice and lifting his shoulders. "Graduating doesn't change much, really."

"No?"

"Didn't for me," he spooned up a bit of dip from a nearby bowl to swipe onto his pizza crust. "You graduate, you get a job. It's not the job you thought you'd get straight out of the gate. You panic and wonder if maybe your degree isn't adequate enough, sign up for another semester."

Dom laughed brightly, "That's just like you, Bills. Good thing I already know my degree doesn't mean anything."

Billy finished his crust and looked at him levelly. "The Architecture one might."

Dom shot him an annoyed glare. "Don't do that, man, I've listened to it all weekend."

Billy shrugged and took up his whiskey again, considering Dom thoughtfully. Having met Dom's parents at the ceremony yesterday, however briefly, was eye opening. As much of what Dom had told him had held true, at least. Yes, his father talked down his nose to him, degraded him a bit, but there was also a very palpable sense of pride there. Billy had felt it when the man shook his hand, when he'd congratulated him on his own accomplishments, and Dom's mother had been sweet and supportive, if a little coddling. Barring that, they'd both come all the way here across an ocean to attend. Billy'd made that flight himself a few times now; it wasn't exactly a fun, comfortable holiday to get from England to New England and back in the space of a few days. Billy'd like the believe his own parents would have come to support him, had they been alive, and Gran too. He'd have loved to have Maggie and James too, if hairdressers made that sort of money. Hell, he wouldn't have minded having anyone there at all who gave a fuck that he'd made it.

Although Dom did, he remembered with a clench in his chest. "When did they leave?"

"This morning. Early." Dom finished his wings, tossed the plate in the bin and scrubbed at his fingers with a napkin, watching Billy nurse his drink. "When I drove them to the airport he never stopped talking about The Martin Centre at Cambridge, the PhD program there," he scowled. "It's like he doesn't even—"

Dom stopped mid-sentence as a chant was struck up from one corner of the loft to egg on what looked like a drinking challenge, with guys' loud voices all around taking up the call. "Sigma! Alpha! Epsilon! Sigma! Alpha! Epsilon!" Dom shouted along, pounding his palm on the countertop with the syllables of the last letter.

As a winner was declared and the noise wound down, Dom grinned at his frat brothers before returning his attention. Billy suddenly realized that Dom's shirt, while not the frat tee he'd worn around campus so often, was the same shade of purple as the SAE tees many of the partiers wore, and the scarf looped loosely around his neck was the same shade of gold as the Greek lettering.

Billy shook his head minutely at nearby lads continuing to roar and tussle to display their machismo. At least it had turned Dom's mood. "Why did you join a fraternity?"

"I dunno," Dom dropped his eyes and lifted a shoulder, his expression going a bit dark again. "Mostly because my dad expected it. He went on about leadership and character building, and how much it _made_ him as a man, but… but it wasn't about any of that once I got here, it was all about girls and partying. At least, at any of the frats that would even consider taking me."

Billy frowned, "Why wouldn't they?"

Dom took a large gulp of his beer, raising his eyebrows, "Most of these Ivy League frats? They aren't so thrilled with the idea of openly gay members. It's a changing view, but it's slow, you know."

Billy nodded. Still, he couldn't help but remember the words of that pledge Dom had framed up in his bedroom.

"Well," Dom slapped the top of the counter again, taking Billy's empty plate and tossing it in the bin, and refilling his own cup and pouring Billy another few fingers of whiskey before he hid the bottle back in its cupboard. "Shall we mingle? That's all these things ever amount to."

Billy laughed and followed him back into the crowd, letting him lead. Somehow over the course of time, though, as various conversations picked up and fell off, they were pulled apart, and Billy'd found himself stuck in meaningless discussion with people he barely knew. 

He chalked it up to the awkwardness of being at a party where he really only had one acquaintance that he'd spent more than two minutes conversing with, who happened to have many other friends besides him to entertain. The fact was that he'd honestly only come because Dom had seemed genuinely excited to have him. That Billy had acquiesced spoke volumes he wasn't sure he wanted to weigh right now. Combined with trying to shift himself into his new routine, adjusting to new schedules at both of his jobs now that his coursework had ended, as well as finally aiming headlong into his research and starting to write his opus, it was all a bit confusing. It had been easy before to push Dom to back of his mind for other more important things, but now the truth was, he suddenly had more free time than he'd had in easily a couple of years, but now that Dom was no longer a biweekly endurance he _had_ to bear, he found himself thinking about him more often than not. It was disconcerting, and left an ache in his gut, that was there even as he watched Dom work the room.

It struck Billy just how popular Dom really was, and how well-liked he seemed to be by most anyone here. It was hard to rationalize, to a point that Billy had to wonder if anyone else had ever been picked by his lot, or if maybe he himself really had just been a sore, stressed-out bastard with no sense of humor for so long. 

The girl currently chattering Billy's ear off, Jenni, had originally hooked him in with a theory about the merits of art in the advertising industry, but then she'd gone off about the romance of TV shows depicting said industry and lost him completely, considering he didn't have cable television. He nodded and hummed accordingly while she prattled on, watching Dom as he migrated through the crowd, grinning and joking and playing a good host.

"So are you and Dom together?"

Billy nearly spit out the gulp he'd just taken at Jenni's abrupt change of subject. "What?"

"Oh my god, I'm sorry!" she blurted, her eyes bugging and her own drink sloshing as she palmed his arm. "I totally just thought... because I've heard stuff, you know."

Billy glanced about for Dom again, but he'd vanished into the crowd, helped by the fact that he was shorter than most. "What sort of stuff?" he asked, his own curiosity suspending his reason to tell her he needed the loo and walk away from this conversation.

Jenni smiled, leaning closer to him conspiratorially, as campus gossip was clearly the juiciest of subjects, "You know, _stuff_."

Recognizing a person digging for details from the source, Billy merely bounced his eyebrows and played along, "What stuff?"

"Okay, so, my friend Nicole said that her friend Renee, who dated Elijah for like a month last year—she said she used to watch you two in Lamont. And, like, it was obvious you didn't like each other, but you studied together, so she thought it was weird," she spoke in a rush. "And _then_ she started wondering if Dom was into you, because he's always going for guys who don't even like him, you know? Except Orlando, but that was a million years ago."

She stopped talking long enough to down another third of her beer, leaving Billy reeling a little.

"Anyway, she said she started thinking you were secretly dating, but like, maybe you weren't out, or something. And now you're here at this party, so it's weird," Jenni told him, then belatedly gasped and covered her mouth, "Oh shit, if you're not even out, that's like so fucking awful to spread around, I'm so..."

"I am," he waved it off distractedly, mostly just to shut her up, because her voice seemed to get louder the more embarrassed she was.

"Really?" she exclaimed, "Wow. I wouldn't have thought that, you're just so...so…."

"So what?" he asked, though he knew he might regret it.

"I dunno, you just so... not gay." 

Billy smirked, shaking his head at that, "Well, I'm not straight."

She slapped his arm and pointed over his shoulder, "I mean, like, you're not gay like _he_ is. Or either of the them, really."

Billy turned to follow her finger, finding Dom halfway up the spiral stair with another young man, one who was long and lanky and intensely pretty. Billy didn't know his name, but knew him by sight as one of the more outwardly flaming students on campus; knew him, in fact, because he'd seen him openly snuggled up with Dom on multiple occasions. Now, he stood there with his coltish arms draped over Dom's shoulders, Dom standing one stair higher to bring their faces on the same level, intimately close as they spoke. Dom had his hands on the man's waist, fingertips rubbing gently through the lad's t-shirt, only a few inches between their bodies. His expression was open and his smile sweet, and something cantankerous coiled up tight in Billy's gut at the sight. He took a large gulp of whiskey with a wince to quell it, but it only tightened further as Dom raised a hand to brush the lad's red fringe back and tilted to kiss his cheek before he moved around him on his way back down.

"Jessie's like, the gayest guy on campus, besides Dom," Jenni continued loudly. "They're like... and you're not..."

"I think you need some juice or something, hmm?" Billy interrupted, "Come on."

"Wow, thanks, I'm so thirsty."

Billy ushered her towards the kitchen with a hand on her back, and just as he'd hoped, she saw someone else she knew and quickly became distracted in chatting with them. He went for the cabinets to sneak the secret bottle of whiskey out to pour himself another generous helping, then found a carton of some sort of juice to refill Jenni's cup. Now completely engrossed in a new conversation with her friend, he merely handed it back to her with a nod and made his way back in the direction where Dom had come down the stairs, skirting around a rowdy crowd of frat boys.

"No, no, no, I was there, man. Dom blew like five guys in a row, and you were one of 'em!"

Billy stopped cold, lingering on the fringe of the group, all of them wearing purple t-shirts. "It was David and Nick and Sean and Orli and _you_ , man."

"No, it fucking wasn't!" The next guy continued to deny profusely, red in the face and laughing to near tears as a group of sorority girls giggled along.

"Dom!" the first guy hooked Dom out of nowhere, pulling him into a tight headlock and knuckling his head. "Didn't you lipstick blow Chris? That one time during Rush Week? Remember?"

The first guy jostled the other, roughly wrestling as Dom pushed his fingers through his hair with a cocky grin at the Chris in question. "How the fuck should I know, I was blindfolded, wasn't I?"

"You should have seen it, man, he was _this_ close to shooting his wad all over your face."

"What can I say, I'm good at what I do," Dom tossed back smugly, licking his lips in a way that made Chris turn fuchsia.

"And Orli too, right?"

"Orli loved it. Didn't you, gorgeous?" Dom sidled up backwards against Orlando's front, reached his arms up and behind to hang from his neck. "Ladies, it's all thanks to me you get to see all this manflesh in the buff so often, just remember that. He's such a camera whore."

Orlando tipped down to Dom's ear to whisper something, eyes fastening to Billy's across the shoulders of their frat friends, and Dom's soon searched and blearily found him as well. Billy looked quickly away, tipped back the rest of his whiskey, and pushed through the crowd.

The thing about Dom was—and Billy had come to this conclusion after lying in bed this morning trying to come up with reasons to ring Dom up and say he couldn't make it to the party after all, but not one of them were excuses he hadn't already played—the thing about Dom was that he was irresistible. Billy could no longer resist him in the flesh. He had agreed to come here only because he had been snugged up in that damned pub booth with Dom's fingertips sliding up and down the side of his neck and his warm thigh all pressed up against his, and even with Dom making the fucking excuse for him _not to come_ , he'd agreed to it anyway. Just to see Dom's eyes go bright, to see him smile at him like that, like the idea genuinely made him happy. On the phone it was easier, although the disappointment in Dom's tone could tug Billy in both directions as well. 

And there were so many reasons why Dom was bad for him. Not least because of the things he'd just seen and heard, things he essentially had known all along peripherally. Dom got around, he was popular, and he was easy, and easily distracted. And very distracting. Bad for Billy' work ethic, bad for his emotional stability. When he suddenly slid back into Billy's space, the way the bubble he was in shrank to just the two of them was almost palpable. He almost felt like he could poke a finger into the air around them and feel some sort of shrink wrap stretch of it.

"Hey," Dom offered.

Billy shifted his eyes at him and then back to the loud group. "All that true?" he asked. He couldn't bite it back. "What they were saying?"

Dom lifted his shoulders, pushing his hands deeply into his back pockets. "It was years ago. I did a lot of stupid shit when I was pledging."

"Three years is not that long ago," Billy remarked, looking at the remnants of liquid in his glass and wishing he was closer to that bottle in the kitchen. "And Orlando?"

Dom shrugged and smiled again, looking over at the subject of conversation. "I had a crush. Who wouldn't? Anyway, nothing came of it but a really ace friend on his account."

Billy glanced at Orlando and give that an understanding smirk. He couldn't even blame Dom for that.

He sighed, watching Orlando as he appeared to be engrossed in a serious conversation with a pretty girl beside the potter's wheel. Orlando being nice to him was a brand new thing in Billy's world, something he didn't quite trust after two years worth of torment. He knew quite well it was only because Dom had told him to lay off.

"What about that other lad?"

"Eh?"

"That tall, ginger prettyboy. The one with his hands all over you."

"You mean Jessie Barnes?" Dom made an amused noise, "Harvard's Queen Tart? Bills, if it's gay, he's had his legs around it."

Billy pursed his lips, shrugging, "Not me."

Dom closed his mouth and opened it again, "No, not you." He moved a few steps closer to lower his voice. "Something I'm thrilled about, really."

"Didn't mean anything with him?" Billy asked.

Dom swallowed, "No." He flapped a hand in a hapless gesture. "Anyway it hasn't been like that for awhile, not with him or anyone else. Not since I've been after you."

"You're after me now?" Billy arched a brow. He didn't know if he meant it as a tease or taunt, and it didn't come out sounding like either. 

A ghost of a smile passed Dom's face, inching closer to him. "I thought that much was obvious."

Billy shifted his feet with a shake of his head and an exhale, crossing his arms over his chest. "Even though you've had me already."

Dom's eyes widened, startlingly serious. "I don't know if I have you."

"Need the loo," Billy said, setting his glass down and leaving Dom there, pushing his way to the spiral stair and trudging up to join the queue at the bathroom.

By the time he managed to shut the door on everyone else and piss, he was angry. How dare Dom do this now. How dare he behave in exactly the manner that drove Billy up a fucking wall for two years while simultaneously morphing into the sweet, charming boy… _man_ he'd come to know, finally accepting adulthood for what it was and would be. Could be, if he took that one extra step he so vehemently wanted to take.

He washed his hands and opened the door to another person waiting to use the toilet, and quickly shuffled out of the way with a smile. Over the loft railing looking down into the main room, he could see that the number of people had dwindled down by probably more than half, groups clustered together and the noise wavering.

The door to Dom's bedroom was half-open as he passed, the light on inside. Billy paused at it—couldn't help it, seeing Dom's sketchbook on the easel, open to a page of sketches that looked suspiciously familiar. He glanced about, seeing most people in conversation, and slipped inside. No one else was in the room, thankfully, though the bedclothes looked ruffled up from people sitting on it or God only knew what else. It looked similar to the last time he'd been in here, markers on the desks, CD cases scattered around the stereo, the Toulouse-Lautrec print hung above the bed.

The sketches on the easel _were_ of him, in Dom's loose, quickly sketched style, and in pieces. Billy sitting on his sofa, grading papers, standing at the podium in Mort's classroom, surrounded by stacks of books in the library, glasses in hand. One large one in the lower corner of the page was just of his face, his eyes and nose, mouth and chin, and his ear, overlapping one of the other sketches, but such an easy likeness that Dom must have a photographic memory.

"Heh. Not the page I left it on."

He jumped and turned to find Dom leaning in the doorway, with a small smile on his face. Going red at being caught, Billy stepped away from the sketchbook and shoved his hands in his pockets. Dom stepped inside the bedroom and leaned on the door until it quietly snicked shut on the party behind him, eyes on Billy with a cautious expression.

"I like to think people change a bit in three years," he said, as if in continuation of what they had started downstairs. "Hell, even three months, given the right circumstances."

"Big difference," Billy said, shaking his head again. It was muddy with drink, and he wasn't quite sure what this conversation meant or where it was headed.

Dom tilted his head and bit his lip, pushing his hands in his pockets before he asked, "Are you angry with me?" His voice wasn't a confrontation; it was quiet, unsure, even vulnerable. "I mean, does it change anything? Those guys from the frat, or Jessie, Garrett—after tonight I'm never going to see any of them again. And I'm fine with that. Are you?"

Billy exhaled, his anger flaring up and just as quickly dying out. He should be, dammit, finding out Dom did all kinds of idiot things and people when he was so busy being a consummate arse—yes, he wanted to be angry. But he had no right to be. He had no right to be angry with Dom's choices that had nothing to do with him. He had no right to think he had anything to do with Dom's choices at all.

He fixated on Dom's body language—hesitant, still, almost shy, the way he _didn't_ reach out to him, _didn't_ touch like he always did, had done with virtually everyone else downstairs. His eyes were distracting, incandescently blue and bright, his lashes a mile long and dark and startling as they swept downward to the floor and back up, waiting for an answer Billy didn't have.

Billy took another step backward, looking at his own shoes and Dom's against the carpeting, gesturing to the bedroom door at the dwindling sounds of people and the volume of the music having been cut down by at least half. "There are a lot of kids a wee bit too pissed to drive home out there," he commented, "You might have to set some up on your sofas."

Dom's face evolved through emotions of before, dawning on sudden comprehension. "Oh, no," he explained, "We always call in a service ahead of time. They bring out vans, and we take down everyone's addresses. All the different colored cards are different neighborhoods, so everyone gets in the right car and goes home to the right place. They make sure everyone gets home safe, and we split the bill between the three of us."

Billy was both surprised and touched by that, remembering the cards downstairs. "That's smart of you. I wouldn't've..."

Dom lifted his chin smugly, coming closer, eyes half-lidded, "What."

"I wouldn't've expected that," Billy came up with quickly, then looked back up at him, "I didn't fill one out."

"You didn't?"

"No," he shrugged, "Orli told me I didn't need to."

Dom smiled, cracking back into the soft, yet heated storm of his eyes. "Bastard." The unstated intention and question weighed heavy in the air as Dom came another step closer, bringing them a mere foot apart, his eyes searingly intense.

Billy raised a hand without a thought, touching the side of Dom's face as his thumb brushed below one of his eyes, coming away with tiny flecks of black on the pad. "What did you do to your eyes?" he murmured.

Dom exhaled a laugh, "'S eyeliner, bit of mascara." He lifted a hand to hold Billy's wrist gently, as if to keep it there. "Do you like it?"

Billy's head gave another small shake, conflicting the way his hand slid along Dom's cheek, his ear cupped in the loop of his thumb and fingers as his eyes searched Dom's face. "'S weird." he muttered, blinking as Dom's face seemed to get closer and blurrier, "I'm really pissed."

A laugh rumbled in Dom's throat, "Yes, you are. You drank my good whiskey, you prick."

Billy laughed as well, leaning his forehead against Dom's cheek and letting him support his weight, feeling his arms go around him. He took a deep breath. "You smell really good."

"Yeah?" Dom's voice rumbled in his ear, and then he felt lips there, just touching, tickling and waking him up with a shiver.

"Going to take advantage of me, then?"

Dom's laugh was a purr against his skin, "You're not that drunk, Bills." He pulled back to look him in the eyes again, "And I wouldn't if you were."

"Such a gentleman," Billy pouted, draping his arms over Dom's shoulders and staring at his mouth, "I still want you to."

A tension wound in Dom's arms, either building or coming undone, Billy's buzzing head could hardly tell which before Dom's mouth was on his, searingly hot and slick and demanding as he was pulled toward the door. One of Dom's hands dropped back to flip the lock before Billy pushed him hard against it with a drunken laugh, "Sock on the doorknob, eh?"

Dom was unmoved by his humor, the glimpses of his face when Billy opened his eyes smoldering heat and razor sharp cuts of blue, and a rake of anguish so startling Billy that wasn't sure how to reassemble it in his confused head. But Dom pushed him into the room, until the backs of his calves hit the bed and he tumbled down, Dom crawling over him like a hungry animal. His mouth was by turns ferocious and gentle, sucking and biting and kissing, Billy grasping at the scarf to tug it off and throw it away, his hand landing in Dom's collar and ripping down the line of buttons of his shirt. Dom pulled at the sweater vest by the shoulders, gave up and thrust his hands up under it and Billy's shirt beneath to push them both over his head, releasing a noise against Billy's heart that sounded like pain.

Struggling amongst the rumpled covers, Dom dragged him up to the pillows, hands scrambling at Billy's jeans and then his own, getting both cursorily shoved down and their legs tangled. Billy let go a moan as they came together from mouths to cocks, alcohol both clouding his mind and evaporating from his skin in a strange clarity of need for this nearness, this ache he didn't know how to quell anymore except for this, to strain and push and kiss against this for as long as he'd be allowed.

"You don't have any idea, do you?" Dom grated out, and his voice had lost all of the silky, suave, easy-going nature it had for ragged, dark need as they moved and grabbed and twisted together, "You make me so fucking crazy. I can't anymore. I _can't_ …"

The crack in Dom's voice is what did it, what made something in Billy's chest nearly explode with emotions he's pounded down for weeks. He surged up and rolled Dom over, seeing the dazed, fiery ache of love written all over Dom's face, and kissed him with all that he had left.


End file.
